Tsvangirai winds up Matebeleland tour tomorrow

Movement for Democratic Change president Morgan Tsvangirai will wind up his week-long tour of Matebeleland tomorrow with a meeting of the provincial leadership in the country’s second largest town, Bulawayo.

Bulawayo, like Harare, is an MDC-T stronghold though the party’s representation in the city has been weakened by factional fighting within the party which saw it losing seats once occupied by legislators who broke away to join Tendai Biti or Elton Mangoma and later Joice Mujuru.

Tsvangirai is canvassing for support to form a coalition with other opposition parties ahead of the 2018 elections but his supporters do not seem to like the idea though he said this had been welcomed by his supporters in Binga.

His spokesman Luke Tamborinyoka today said Tsvangirai had to “clear the air” about false reports that he had already traded off some seats to the coalition partners.

Tsvangirai said the alliance negotiations had not even begun and the reports were false and malicious as there was no agreement yet.

Tamborinyoka said Tsvangirai will take a short break after the tour.

Tsvangirai, who was diagnosed with cancer last year, had to quell rumours that he was dead soon after he embarked on the tour.

Full statement:

Friday, 27 January 2017

President Tsvangirai engages Bulawayo, Plumtree  

President Morgan Tsvangirai today continued on his listening tour when he engaged opinion leaders in Bulawayo and Plumtree in Matabeleland South.

The tour continues to reflect a region with deep-seated feelings of marginalisation, neglect and abandonment by an uncaring government that has no love for its people. The people continued to pour their hearts out to a leader they love and whom they thanked for giving them an opportunity to input into the alliance building process and the sculpting of a new society beyond Mugabe and Zanu PF in 2018.

So frank and open were the meetings that at one point in Bulawayo, one opinion leader made an emotional outburst in which he bemoaned the marginalisation of the people in the Matabeleland region.

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