THE Nelson Chamisa-led MDC has said the opposition party marched in support of the ouster of the late former President Robert Mugabe in 2017 without knowing it was backing the wrong horse.

The MDC and ordinary Zimbabweans took to the streets in November 2017 in support of Mugabe’s ouster and celebrated the coming in of Emmerson Mnangagwa as President after the military coup in November 2017.

Two years on, MDC chairman for Harare province, Wellington Chikombo, says they made a mistake and have realised that Mnangagwa cannot be a solution to the Zimbabwean crisis.

“Mnangagwa cannot give us a solution today when he was part of the Mugabe administration for 37 years. He is an old person in new clothes, that doesn’t make him young. Look at his behaviour,” Chikombo said while addressing beneficiaries of the party’s social support programme in Zengeza, Chitungwiza.

“When we marched in 2017, we celebrated trouble. We jumped from a frying pan into the fire. We thought we were rescuing the people from Mugabe, but we wasted our energy on Mnangagwa. We wasted our time.”

Chamisa has repeatedly accused Mnangagwa of duping the late MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai that after Mugabe’s ouster, the country would defer elections and appoint a transitional authority to run government business until the economy had stabilised.

Chikombo said it was a sorry sight to see pensioners suffering in long queues to access cash from banks, saying: “Our pensioners here are struggling. In other countries, being old pays. People are paid for getting old, but here, our old men and women are eating vegetables without cooking oil.”

NewsDay