ARTHUR Mutambara and Morgan Tsvangirai at Tuesday's memorial service for slain MDC activist Gift Tandare

By Pfudzai Chibgowa 

HARARE – Zimbabwe’s resurgent opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party on Tuesday said it would not participate in presidential and parliamentary elections expected next year unless the government first agreed to a new constitution that would guarantee free and fair polls. 

President Robert Mugabe has announced elections will be held as scheduled in 2008 when his term ends after powerful figures in his divided ruling ZANU PF party scuttled his plans to extend his rule by postponing the presidential poll so it could be held together with parliamentary elections in 2010. 

Mugabe however has to wait to see whether ZANU PF’s politburo and central committees that meet today and Friday will endorse his candidacy for the presidential poll. 

Speaking at a memorial service for MDC activist Gift Tandare - murdered by the police about three weeks ago – the leaders of the two factions of the MDC, Morgan Tsvangirai and Arthur Mutambara, pledged a united effort to push for a new and democratic constitution before elections could be held. 

Tandare was shot and killed in cold blood by the police on March 11 during pro-democracy protests in Harare’s low-income suburb of Highfield, a hotbed of opposition support. 

"We are not going to make the fundamental error of going into elections without a new constitution. We say no to elections without a new constitution," said Tsvangirai to applause from the crowd gathered for the memorial. 

"We would rather wait a bit longer until we have the freedoms that we have been fighting for," added Tsvangirai, who was himself brutally assaulted by the police for organising anti-government protests. 

Describing Tandare as a hero of the new struggle against dictatorship, Mutambara called for unity among opposition ranks in order to “confront this one enemy of democracy, the ruling ZANU PF party.” 

Earlier, chairman of the National Constitutional Assembly civic alliance Lovemore Madhuku criticised neighbouring countries for their inertia in helping resolve Zimbabwe’s deepening crisis. 

"African countries are insulting us because they have not said anything substantive against Mugabe’s regime. We bury our people who are fighting for democracy but we don’t get support from our brothers in our efforts to promote greater freedom,” said Madhuku. 

Southern African Development Community leaders, who have in the past refused to publicly censure repression by Mugabe, are scheduled to discuss the deteriorating situation in Zimbabwe at a meeting in Tanzania at the end of the week, in the clearest sign yet that they are worried the crisis could destabilise the region. - ZimOnline