{"id":34523,"date":"2017-05-12T12:29:03","date_gmt":"2017-05-12T12:29:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/zimbabwe-s-odd-couple-seeking-to-oust-robert\/"},"modified":"2017-05-12T12:29:00","modified_gmt":"2017-05-12T12:29:00","slug":"zimbabwe-s-odd-couple-seeking-to-oust-robert","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/zimbabwe-s-odd-couple-seeking-to-oust-robert\/","title":{"rendered":"Zimbabwe’s ‘odd couple’ seeking to oust Robert Mugabe"},"content":{"rendered":"

{One is a female former teenage guerrilla fighter who became President Robert Mugabe’s closest ally, the other is a battle-hardened opposition leader often dismissed as a busted flush.}<\/p>\n

But, despite their differences, Joice Mujuru and Morgan Tsvangirai are in talks to lead a united opposition alliance to try to unseat Mugabe in Zimbabwe’s much-anticipated election next year.<\/p>\n

The president, 93 and increasingly frail, has vowed to stand again to extend his rule, which began in 1980 and has been dominated by economic collapse and political repression.<\/p>\n

His ZANU-PF party has a stranglehold on government, the civil service and military, and has a record of election interference and voter intimidation that presents a formidable obstacle for any challenger.<\/p>\n

“For us, it is more the merrier in this opposition alliance,” Mujuru told AFP, speaking in the garden of her large house on outskirts of Harare.<\/p>\n

“This is a coming-together in great numbers as a democratic force that should give confidence to our people.”<\/p>\n

Zimbabwe’s history of violent and fraud-riddled elections has eroded public trust in voting, but the coalition leaders hope a unified alternative to Mugabe will produce a high turnout that would make it harder to rig the result.<\/p>\n

“I don’t expect Mugabe to say ‘I am going to create conditions for free and fair elections’,” Tsvangirai, 65, told AFP at his office in a tower block in central Harare.<\/p>\n

“We need 80 percent participation, not 40 percent. If there is an overwhelming verdict, there will be no one who will stand in the way of the people.”<\/p>\n

DANGEROUS POLITICS<\/p>\n

Tsvangirai, leader of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party, knows first-hand the dangers of tangling with Mugabe’s regime.<\/p>\n

Since emerging as an anti-government trade unionist in the 1980s, he has often been targeted by the security forces and was brutally assaulted by police in 2007.<\/p>\n

He won the most votes in the first-round of the 2008 presidential elections, but poll officials said it was not enough to avoid a run-off against Mugabe.<\/p>\n

As ZANU-PF loyalists unleashed a wave of violence, Tsvangirai pulled out of the race and became prime minister in a power-sharing government in which he was widely seen as being outmanoeuvered by Mugabe.<\/p>\n

“ZANU-PF has not won recent elections, it has rigged them,” Tsvangirai said.<\/p>\n

“Anyone who is interested in ending ZANU-PF should unite, in spite of ideological differences.<\/p>\n

“I think she (Mujuru) means well. I mean well. People will realise both of us are committed to the process.”<\/p>\n

Many of Tsvangirai’s supporters and anti-Mugabe activists view Mujuru as an untrustworthy opposition voice.<\/p>\n

She served for 34 years as a loyal ZANU-PF minister and was a favourite to succeed Mugabe. As a youth, she fought in the war against colonial rule and was famed for shooting down an enemy helicopter.<\/p>\n

But in 2014 she was ousted as the country’s vice-president in a purge when Mugabe’s wife Grace accused her of plotting a coup.<\/p>\n

After forming the new National People’s Party, 62-year-old Mujuru may draw some support from former ZANU-PF voters, women, the business community \u2014 and even disgruntled members of the military.<\/p>\n

Seen as a relative moderate within Mugabe’s circle, she recalls working well with Tsvangirai during the 2008 – 2013 power-sharing government.<\/p>\n

{{ ‘A game-changer’?}}<\/p>\n

“For me, it was a chance of seeing Zimbabweans working together in a more harmonious way,” she said.<\/p>\n

“I was one of the very few people who was always receptive to opposition parties.”<\/p>\n

The potential of a united opposition was underlined in The Gambia’s election last year when rivals came together to defeat longtime dictator Yahya Jammeh.<\/p>\n

A new opposition alliance is also planning to fight in Kenya’s August poll.<\/p>\n

The Zimbabwean coalition made significant progress last month by signing up Welshman Ncube, who led a group that split from Tsvangirai’s MDC.<\/p>\n

Similar deals are in the works with the People’s Democratic Party, led by the respected former finance minister Tendai Biti, as well as with more than a dozen smaller parties.<\/p>\n

Tsvangirai, an avid golfer who is recovering from cancer, appears set to be the coalition’s presidential candidate \u2014 with Mujuru likely to offer him her full support.<\/p>\n

But critics say his political sway is too narrow to build a truly broad anti-Mugabe movement that would include churches, civil action groups and radical activists behind last year’s surge of street protests.<\/p>\n

“There is little doubt that Morgan should be the leader, the issue is on what grounds the support comes from others,” said Ivor Jenkins, of the In Transformation Initiative, a South African pro-democracy group that is aiding talks among the opposition.<\/p>\n

“The game-changer might be the realisation that this could be their last chance. If they don’t take it, there are many years of bigger chaos ahead.<\/p>\n

\"Robert<\/figure>\n

Source:AFP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

{One is a female former teenage guerrilla fighter who became President Robert Mugabe’s closest ally, the other is a battle-hardened opposition leader often dismissed as a busted flush.} But, despite their differences, Joice Mujuru and Morgan Tsvangirai are in talks to lead a united opposition alliance to try to unseat Mugabe in Zimbabwe’s much-anticipated election […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[100],"byline":[160],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-34523","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics-48","tag-africa","byline-theophile-niyitegeka"],"bylines":[{"id":160,"name":"Th\u00e9ophile Niyitegeka","slug":"theophile-niyitegeka","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":3}],"contributors":[{"id":160,"name":"Th\u00e9ophile Niyitegeka","slug":"theophile-niyitegeka","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":3}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34523","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34523"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34523\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34523"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34523"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34523"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=34523"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=34523"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}