PDP says shares a lot with Mujuru’s ZimPF

Mujuru’s party attended our meeting … PDP’S Gorden Moyo

A day before, PDP had another surprise, this time in the form of a joint press release with the MDC-T in which the former allies both urged Finance Minister Patrick Chinamasa and central bank governor John Mangudya to abandon their plan to introduce bond notes in place of the South African rand.
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When the allies fell out in 2014, PDP vowed they would never work with the MDC-T for as long as former Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai was still its president.

PDP has in the past few months snubbed civil society organised prayer rallies for abducted journalist and activist Itai Dzamara in which the MDC-T virtually formed the crowds.

But the climb down has been palpable recently, culminating in the joint signing of the National Electoral Reform Agenda (NERA), which saw the two parties append signatures together with other opposition parties.

The party, which comprises former MDC-T politicians who broke ranks with the 17 year old opposition to form a new opposition, has also recently toned down its criticism of Tsvangirai and his party.

But PDP secretary general Gorden Moyo weekend dismissed perceptions his party was both on a climb-down path and getting insecure operating as a lone unit as the competition for the 2018 elections peaks.

“There is nothing strange about our joint statement. We have done this before. Remember our independence joint statement of opposition political society,” Moyo told NewZimbabwe.com.

“In the case of the latest statement, there is clear convergence between the two parties regarding the bond notes, the misrepresentation of facts by Bretton Woods Institutions, and fallacy of reforms by the Ministry of Finance together with RBZ.

“The joint statement was based on very clear convergences and commonalities of policy.”

By attending Mujuru’s rally, Moyo said, his party was merely reciprocating on a gesture by former Zanu PF politicians now at the helm of ZimPF, who also attended PDP’s inaugural congress last September.

“Our attendance of ZimPF rally is nothing new either. Remember ZimPF attended our inaugural congress held on the 9th, 10th and 11th of September. In that congress ZimPF gave a solidarity message.

“We and PF share a lot together. We both believe in the pedigree of PanAfricanism; we are both committed to building a modern democratic state, and we are both social democrats. Moreover, our histories at formation are mirror images of each other.

“We were both axed out of parliament; hence there is nothing new about us giving solidarity to each other.”

When the then MDC Renewal Team broke away from MDC-T, the party made a spirited effort to reunite with the Welshman Ncube led MDC, which comprises a group of founding MDC politicians who were first to ditch the party in 2005.

However, both parties have shown little enthusiasm to operationalise their reunification pact.