Zimbabwe’s splintered opposition should unite to block plans by President Robert Mugabe’s ruling party to extend his rule by another two years to 2010, the head of a faction said Tuesday.
”We are saying ‘no’ to Robert Mugabe and Zanu-PF,” declared Arthur Mutambara, leader of the splinter Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), at a news conference in the capital, Harare, where the party launched a defiance campaign.
”In pursuit of this, we believe there is no alternative to working together in the opposition. If we don’t work together, we are working for Zanu-PF. We are surrogates and sell-outs.”
Zimbabwe’s main opposition MDC ,led by Morgan Tsvangirai, split into two following a row over Senate polls in 2005.
The Mutambara faction contested the polls while the Tsvangirai side boycotted them, saying they were a luxury in an economically ravaged nation grappling with four-digit inflation, steep unemployment and food shortages.
Mutambara said the feuding factions were already working together in an umbrella grouping of rights and opposition groups called the ”Save Zimbabwe Campaign.”
”The year 2007 is a year of action to bring political and economic change in our country … It’s all-out war and … we are saying no to the illegal extension to Mugabe’s mandate beyond 2008.”
”The price of freedom is death,” Mutambara said, adding that the protests would include rallies, marches and boycotts.
Nelson Chamisa, a spokesperson for the rival faction, agreed it was high time the fractured opposition buried the hatchet.
”Unity of purpose far outweighs other considerations that divide us artificially,” Chamisa said.
”We want a synergy of efforts to try and unlock the crisis in this country and support any group that shares the same thinking.”
Mugabe, who has ruled the Southern African nation for 27 years, is due to step down in 2008.
But the ruling party politburo endorsed that the presidential polls should be held in 2010 to coincide with parliamentary polls. — Sapa-AFP