HARARE - Eddie Cross, MDC policy director, says Zimbabwe now has four centres of power divided among the two feuding Zanu PF factions, Morgan Tsvangirai (pictured) and former Central Bank governor Gideon Gono.
The legislator for Bulawayo South down played the ongoing strife in the opposition party, dismissing Tendai Biti and his team who have been calling for Tsvangirai to step down, as holding little sway over voters.
Cross said if the country were to have “a genuine, fair and credible election, free of manipulation, violence and intimidation that have characterised Zimbabwe’s electoral processes since independence from Britain in 1980, the MDC would be returned to power.”
“The recent upheavals in the MDC leadership are just so much froth on the surface of the sea, get down into the water and he (Tsvangirai) still holds sway,”
Cross said. “Mr Biti (Tendai) and Mr Mangoma (Elton), like Mr Ncube (Welshman) and his crew, are discovering that if they try to ride the MDC tiger, they will be discarded and eaten. All that is left of the Ncube challenge to his leadership in 2005 are bones in the bush.”
Besides the MDC, Cross says another centre of power are the two factions in the ruling Zanu PF, one reportedly led by Justice minister Emmerson Mnangagwa and the other by vice president Joice Mujuru.
Cross, however, touts the Mnangagwa faction as the more powerful of the two as it controls elements both in Parliament and Cabinet.
He nevertheless said the Mnangagwa faction was not popular as it was regarded as being largely responsible for the party’s failure in government.
There has been calls both within and outside Zanu PF for Finance minister Patrick Chinamasa, believed to be in Mnangagwa’s camp, to be shunted to another ministry amid allegations that he has failed to revive the economy.
Government has been struggling to raise salaries of civil servants and has had to take the unprecedented decision to postpone pay dates.
Cross said Gono also has an outside chance of becoming a future leader of the ruling party.
“Mr Gono, former governor of the Reserve Bank, is clearly in this grouping and is sometimes talked about as a possible future leader,” Cross said.
Factionalism has been a common feature in Zimbabwe’s body politic and the opposition MDC has been teetering on the brink since the July 31, 2013 elections convincingly won by Zanu PF albeit amid allegations of fraud.
Hawks in the party led by former deputy treasurer-general Mangoma and former secretary-general Biti sought to take over the reins of power, blaming Tsvangirai for the party’s loss to Zanu PF
But Cross believes the MDC rebels have no capacity to dislodge Tsvangirai. Just like Ncube’s attempt to seize power in 2005, Cross said Biti’s project was doomed.