Posts by Charles Rukuni

The United States was holding higher standards for Zimbabwe than most other countries because it once held itself to higher standards and had been a model for the region.

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President Robert Mugabe was skilled at managing confrontation and he was not good when it was not there, United Nations Assistant Secretary-General for Political Affairs Tuliameni Kalomoh told United States embassy officials in Harare.

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About 200 Zimbabwe African National Union- Patriotic Front youths are reported to have attacked Movement for Democratic Change leaders attending a provincial assembly meeting in Mvurwi.

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David Coltart rose to fame in the 1980s when he defended senior Zimbabwe African People’s Union politicians such as Sidney Malunga, Edward Ndlovu and Stephen Nkomo, all dead now, when they were being harassed during the 1980s civil strife when ZAPU was accused of trying to topple President Robert Mugabe’s government. Mugabe was Prime Minister at the time. He then set up the Bulawayo Legal Projects Centre to help those who could not afford lawyers. This further catapulted him to fame leading to his election as a Movement for Democratic Change Member of Parliament in 2000. Coltart was a former member of the Rhodesia police before going to South Africa to study law. He is currently the Minister of Education in the inclusive government. There are more than 100 Wikileaks cables on him. Here are the first 50.

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That was the general feeling as it emerged that the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front, which was supposed to be in for a surprise in the 2005 parliamentary election, had garnered 59 percent of the vote and was heading for a two-thirds majority.

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Movement for Democratic Change secretary-general Welshman Ncube told United States ambassador to Zimbabwe Joseph Sullivan that the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front did not want harmonised parliamentary and presidential elections because it did not have a presidential candidate.

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The Movement for Democratic Change did quite fairly well in the 2005 elections when it won 41 seats down from 57 five years earlier because Shadow Minister for Justice David Coltart had said the party would win only 25 seats.

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The Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front won the crucial Zengeza seat but its victory was marred by reports of violence in which ZANU-PF Minister Elliot Manyika was accused of shooting a Movement for Democratic Change youth.

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Movement for Democratic Change supporters marched twice to Harvest House to protest against the imposition of James Makore as the party’s candidate in the Zengeza by-election but they were driven away by party youths on both occasions.

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