Ncube not a natural

The Zimbabwean

EDITOR – In a development that shocked many Zimbabweans a couple of years ago, the State owned daily newspaper, The Herald carried full page headline story which gave the profile of MDC Secretary-General, Professor Welshman Ncube. It was very rare for the state owned media to give positive coverage to anyone in the opposition. Zimbabweans had gotten used to stories that denigrated the MDC leaders, Morgan Tsvangirai and Professor Welshman Ncube included. In a rare admission, Professor Ncube admitted in that article that he was not a natural politician. A few years down the line, Professor Ncube has proved beyond doubt his own personal assessment of himself in an article carried in the Daily Mirror of 4 January 2006: “Even if Zanu (PF) says there is an election for a toilet caretaker we will participate”, Professor Ncube is reported to have said these words when he addressed over 600 pro-Senate supporters in Mt Pleasant after the restructuring of his faction’s Mashonaland West, Mashonaland Central and Harare provincial executive committees. Like a few other officials in the pro-senate faction, which the professor himself prefers to call the “pro respect for the MDC constitution group”, Professor Ncube had, since the beginning of the crisis that has split the party leaders into two opposing camps, been saying that he was only supporting the idea to participate in Zimbabwe’s senatorial elections because there are others within the party who think it is necessary to participate in these elections. But the statement he made in Mount Pleasant, which in essence means that he thinks that we have to participate in every election Mugabe comes up with, even if it is irrelevant. The MDC opposed the re-introduction of a senate, but in a surprising turn, some officials of the party decided that the party had to participate in the senate elections, even though many prominent Zimbabweans, including the MDC’s Secretary for Legal Affairs, David Coltart, described the senate as an irrelevant institution in Zimbabwe. It would appear from Professor Ncube’s statement that he has been pursuing his own interests under the guise of protecting the democratic rights of those MDC officials who wanted the party to participate in the senate elections. One cannot rule out the possibility that he could be the very person who sold the idea to have the MDC participate in the senate elections, which idea was quickly bought up especially by those who saw the possibility of making easy money as senators. Thank you Professor Ncube for showing your true colours. Having admitted that he is not a natural politician, the best Professor Ncube can do is to quit politics and concentrate on his legal profession or farming. There are unconfirmed reports that Professor Ncube has not been evicted from a farm he owns in the Midlands Province of Zimbabwe because he got it from Mugabe’s Zanu (PF).

Benjamin Chitate, Auckland, New Zealand

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