Zimbabwe opposition re-elects Tsvangirai as leader

By Cris Chinaka

HARARE (Reuters) – Zimbabwe’s main opposition re-elected
veteran party leader Morgan Tsvangirai on Sunday after he
called for mass action to ratchet up pressure on President
Robert Mugabe’s government.

The Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) in all 12 of
Zimbabwe’s provinces, plus the party’s youth and women’s’
wings, endorsed a new term for Tsvangirai at the end of a
two-day congress. There were no challengers.

Party members will also vote on Sunday for a new leadership
team, which analysts say will determine both the party’s battle
with Mugabe and its stand-off with rival MDC members who have
formed their own opposition group after a recent split.

Nelson Chamisa, a spokesman for Tsvangirai’s MDC faction —
seen by many as the main opposition — said earlier the party
was expected to back the former trade union leader’s call on
Saturday for a wave of protests against Mugabe.

“We are … expecting the congress to approve the political
program proposed by the leadership,” he said.

When he addressed 15,000 congress delegates on Saturday,
Tsvangirai called on Zimbabweans to launch a “cold season of
peaceful democratic resistance” against Mugabe’s rule, saying
only sustained mass protests could overcome government
brutality.

There has been no immediate response from the government to
Tsvangirai’s call for mass action, but Mugabe’s government has
routinely deployed security forces to crush political protests.

Another MDC executive member said Tsvangirai’s statement
was welcomed by many delegates during a closed session late on
Saturday, but details of when and how the protests would be
organized were not debated.

“The congress is going to adopt a number of broad political
programs, including that proposal. … But I think the details
will be left to committees that deal with strategies,” said the
official who declined to be named.

“The focus is on the future … although some people are
still distracted by the recent defections by some of our former
colleagues,” he added.

The MDC split after Tsvangirai, who has led the party since
its founding in 1999, called for a poll boycott for a new
Senate which he said was aimed at consolidating Mugabe’s hold
on power.

A splinter group led by MDC deputy president Gibson Sibanda
and secretary-general Welshman Ncube accused Tsvangirai of
dictatorship and last month elected former student activist
Arthur Mutambara as leader of the own MDC faction.

Several officials from Tsvangirai’s group are vying to fill
up positions left by Sibanda and Ncube, including veteran
politicians and professionals.

Political analysts say the new leadership will almost
certainly reflect Tsvangirai’s own uncompromising approach and
could usher the party into fresh confrontation with Mugabe’s
ZANU-PF, which has ruled Zimbabwe since independence in 1980.

The southern African country is wrestling with shortages of
food, fuel and foreign currency, unemployment over 70 percent
and the highest inflation rate in the world from a deep
economic crisis many critics blame on Mugabe’s government.