Zimbabwe’s main opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai has reunited with his former allies to challenge President Robert Mugabe’s over three-decade hold on power at the polls next year.
Mugabe, 93, has ruled the former British colony since independence in 1980.
Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) has been the main threat to Mugabe since its formation in 1999 but has been weakened by splits, in 2005 and 2014, mainly over strategy.
On Saturday, Welshman Ncube, who led a breakaway MDC faction in 2004 and Tendai Biti, who left the main opposition in 2014, signed a pact that would see them fielding parliamentary candidates in some constituencies under the MDC Alliance banner and would support Tsvangirai’s fourth bid for the presidency.
At the pact signing event in Harare, Tsvangirai said all opposition parties must unite.
He added: “We as members of this alliance are saying that we are creating this narrative; a narrative to give our people hope, a narrative to give our people another chance, a narrative to complete what we started in 1999.”
Ncube, on his part, said the objective was to remove ZANU-PF and Mugabe, adding: “Anything else is beside the point”.
Also speaking, a political analyst Earnest Mudzengi noted: “What we are realising to a large extent is the reunification of the old MDC that was formed around 1999 to 2000.”
“So we now wait to see what those who say they have now joined hands are going to do. Are they going to be the same old MDC that tended to become fractious, or they are now going to pull with one purpose?”
