BY STAFF REPORTER
THE Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) has volunteered to craft
the opposition MDC Alliance’s election manifesto to reconnect the
opposition leaders with the workers.
ZCTU president Peter Mutasa told thousands of opposition supporters at
the MDC Alliance launch rally in Harare on Saturday that workers were
better placed to put together a winning manifesto.
“We are on the ground as workers’ leaders and we know what the people
want. If you are sincere about going back to your founding values, it
would be proper for you to allow us to craft the manifesto for next
year’s elections. Once the alliance has been set up, we will give you a
manifesto with the issues that touch at the heart of the people,” Mutasa
said.
While the MDC-T in particular has over the years sought to project
itself as a social democratic party with pro-labour leanings, critics
have accused the Morgan Tsvangirai-led party of dumping its labour
background and adopting capitalist tendencies.
Mutasa warned opposition leaders not to lose direction once elected into power.
“Whatever happens, you must remember that once you are elected into
power, it is taboo in African custom to eat your totem. Do not eat the
workers once elected into power. Do not turn against labour once you
have your hands on the levers of power. That is why we must continue to
guide you, including through the manifesto,” the ZCTU leader said.
The envisaged alliance brings together MDC founding members Tendai Biti and Welshman Ncube, among others.
Ncube, who served as MDC’s first secretary-general, broke ranks with
Tsvangirai in October 2005, accusing the former Prime Minister of being a
dictator. Biti took over as secretary-general, but also broke away in
2013 questioning Tsvangirai’s leadership qualities.
Both Biti and Ncube pledged to take the opposition back to its founding values.
“We are here because we want to give the people of Zimbabwe a fighting
chance at removing Mugabe. We are here to give a fresh, new beginning,
to rest factory settings to our struggle,” Biti said.
Ncube concurred, saying: “We must go back to the founding values of the
MDC, the founding values that we agreed at the Working People’s
Convention in 1999. We must admit before you that we made mistakes along
the way and we are sorry.”
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