Kholwani Nyathi
4 July 2009
PRIME Minister Morgan Tsvangirai says he differs with President Robert Mugabe on tactics and strategy but will defend the veteran leader's place in the transitional government to save the country from total collapse.
Tsvangirai was speaking during a meeting with French journalists in Paris on his last leg of his three-week European and United States trip two weeks ago.
There were already swirling murmurs of disapproval over the Prime Minister's statements glossing over continued human rights violations and farm invasions.
"Our relationship is business like," he said responding to questions on his working relationship with Mugabe.
"We differ on strategy and tactics but we all realise that we have to put the interests of Zimbabweans first."
He said the two differed on land reforms as his party preferred an orderly redistribution of land.
Last week the Solidarity Peace Trust, a human rights group said Zimbabwe's power-sharing agreement was still yet to be fully implemented because Zanu PF and the MDC formations were forced into the coalition by neighbours.
The group called on the Southern African Development Community (Sadc) and the African Union (AU) -- the guarantors of the September 15 power-sharing agreement -- to ensure that the parties adhered to their part of the bargain.
But Tsvangirai told French Foreign Affairs Minister Bernard Kouchner during a lunch meeting that although the MDC- T was initially reluctant to join hands with Mugabe it realised that the new dispensation was irreversible.
"The situation was not as clear as we have seen it in the past four months," he said. "Zimbabwe is changing and it is now on an irreversible path to democracy and in the next 18 months we will hold free and fair elections after we craft a new constitution.
"Before we came into government it was totally inconceivable that I will sit in the same cabinet with Mugabe but I will be the first one to defend his right to a place in the transition."
Tsvangirai was also asked about his previous Zanu PF membership which he said fell away after he became disgruntled with the party's policies.
He said Mugabe's transformation from being a liberation hero to a ruthless leader "confounds friend and foes alike".
The Prime Minister also said there was need to bring closure to the circumstances leading to the death of his wife, Susan, saying he is convinced that it was a genuine accident.
Tsvangirai's wife died on the spot just three weeks after he was sworn when their car collided with a truck on the Harare- Masvingo highway.
"I could have died in that accident," he said. "I saw what happened and believe it was an accident.
"This came against the background of a number of accidents in Zimbabwe that involved politicians that were never explained."
He said he never considered quitting politics after the accident as it would have been "a betrayal of the party and the people who gave us the mandate to lead them".
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moltecc you are very racist towards whites and whether you like it or not their opinion is just as valuable as yours and being black does not make you better than anyone else who is not. You have so much hatred built up in you that it will literally destroy you. One minute you can hate Mugabe but the next minute you love him but it is as you say here in Africa one minute one can love a person and the next minute be ready to kill them that is the African mindset, so even I see that....Stop your name calling and Tsvangirai's comment we must have the Zimbabweans best interest at heart well then why are they still starving and suffering while Mugabe and Tsvangirai live like kings? They do not care as long as they can live well about what happens to the Zimbabweans all around them. I see that in many African countries where people only care about themselves and can walk past a starving person and it not bother them one bit!!
Afric35, Moltec is the prime example of a person which the new Zimbabwe does not need. He is not welcome. Let him go and squat in Bob's hong kong mansion.
Why not respect Khama and stop calling him coloured? Mixed race is not a sin.
Moks only a disrespectful and RUDE person will call a grown man a "Boy". Good for the Botsa guy not wanting to mingle with IDIOTS - why should he lower himself to their level!
I call mixed race, cultural intergration. Can only be good for reconcilliation.
The ink is balck The page is white Together we learn to read and write to read and write
The board is black the chalk is white Together we learn to read an write to read and write!!!!!
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Well, well, who brought the country to collapse?
In between the lines, Tsvangirai is saying criminal Mugabe brought the country to collapse.
It's not a new assertion. the world knows that criminal Mugabe has destroyed the country. And yet, the Army is fully behind the destroyer of wealth and peace! What for?
MDC's strategy to worn away bloodstained Mugabe has seen the death of Morgan's wife in what a mojority of observers believe was a Mugabe move to target Morgan himself.
However, for the higher interest of the nation, Morgan is sacrificing the loss of his wife to get rid of the bloodstained dictator through the ballot box.
let's all wish him luck.