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MDC Renewal Urges Mugabe to Resign


Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe
Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe

An offshoot of the Movement for Democratic Change calling itself the MDC Renewal Team says President Robert Mugabe should resign for presiding over an economy that is sliding into recession.

MDC Renewal Team spokesperson Jacob Mafume told Studio 7 that President Mugabe has failed to lead the country and urged him to resign from his post to pave way for fresh polls.

This comes at a time when Zanu PF has admitted that it is ready to engage the country’s opposition parties with a view to finding solutions to problems affecting the country following former prime minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s calls for national dialogue.

Zanu PF has also set a pre-condition that Mister Tsvangirai should recognize the outcome of last year’s national elections which the MDC-T claims were rigged by President Mugabe and his party.

Mafume tells Studio 7 that any form of negotiations with Zanu PF were retrogressive, adding the best way forward is for Mr. Mugabe to throw in the towel.

Mafume said polls to be held thereafter should only be held after key democratic reforms have been implemented to ensure an undisputed outcome. Mister Tsvangirai on Wednesday claimed that Mister Mugabe’s illegitimacy was the major cause of the current economic meltdown.

Contacted for comment on the calls for Mister Mugabe to step down, Zanu PF spokesperson Rugare Gumbo said he was in a meeting while several calls to the ruling party’s secretary for administration, Didymas Mutasa, went unanswered.

But Zanu PF activist, Morris Ngwenya told Studio 7 by phone that the MDC Renewal Team is seeking attention and is now using national issues to divert focus on the internal squabbles in the MDC-T.

He added that there is no need for those negotiations, arguing that the MDC has nothing to bring to the proposed discussions as it was founded on the Mugabe must go principle.

Following last year’s disputed polls, Zimbabwe’s economy has been shrinking and the MDC-T claims that more than 300 companies have shut down since the 2013 elections.

Authorities say the country’s economy is likely to grow by at least 6 percent this year but international finance institutions believe that it will grow by less than 2 percent in 2014.

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