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Dear Friends,

I cannot believe how this year has flown. In some ways it seems just yesterday that I was honoured and grateful to be re-elected by you as an MDC MP with a 76% majority. However that was in March and eight months have gone by since then. You will recall that in the run up to the election ZANU PF promised that if they were elected back into power they would stop the economic collapse, create more employment, bring an end to fuel queues, bring inflation down, tackle corruption and generally improve the lives of Zimbabweans. As I warned in my campaign, this regime does not have the ability, or the political will, to deal effectively with the many problems our nation is facing. Sadly the crisis created by the regime’s failed policies and incompetence has escalated greatly in the last eight months. Our nation is now facing a catastrophe of unprecedented proportions.

It has been as difficult as ever to communicate with you, my constituents. I find it ironic that despite the fact that I have now been your Member of Parliament for almost six years I have never once been invited to be interviewed by ZBC Montrose studios which as you know is right in the centre of the Bulawayo South constituency. The reason for this is obvious-the regime does not want me to be able to communicate with you. Indeed in the last year communications have become even more difficult. The Chronicle is still hostile. The Daily News remains banned and they are now reports that both the Daily Mirror and the Financial Gazette have been taken over by the CIO. I am not discouraged by these actions of the regime - it is clearly fearful of what will happen if I and my colleagues in the MDC are able to communicate with you freely. For the time being then I will continue to communicate with you through the means of report back meetings (which I continue to have regularly throughout the constituency) and these letters. I ask that you pass this letter around so that as many people as possible generally about what I have been trying to do on your behalf.

Zimbabwe Independent

THE Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) national council yesterday passed a vote of no confidence in executive members of the pro-senate faction, barring them from carrying out party functions until the party congress next year.

The resolution suspends deputy president Gibson Sibanda, secretary-general Welshman Ncube and his deputy Gift Chimanikire, treasurer Fletcher Dulini-Ncube, information and publicity secretary Paul Themba Nyathi and secretary for policy and research Trudy Stevenson.

At a meeting attended by 57 of the 66-member council, the body adopted a resolution to “dissociate with the pro-senate group” by invoking members’ constitutional right to freedom of association.

“The council resolves that pending their availability for party business, the national council resolves to exercise its freedom of association by not associating with the deputy president, secretary-general, deputy secretary-general, the treasurer-general, the secretary for information and publicity and the secretary for policy and research, among others,” says the resolution passed by delegates from all provinces except Matabeleland South.

Analysts say the resolution was crafted in such a manner as to hobble efforts by the pro-senate group to take their case to court over party assets.

In what is seen as a victory for party leader Morgan Tsvangirai and chairman Isaac Matongo against the pro-senate group, the national council reposed authority to convene all future council meetings in the secretariat while stripping Welshman Ncube of his administrative duties to arrange such meetings.

Youth chairman and MP for Kuwadzana Nelson Chamisa was mandated to take over the role of party spokesman from Nyathi.

The national council resolved that in the absence of Ncube, Dulini-Ncube, and Nyathi since October 12 when differences over participation in senatorial election split the party into two factions, Isaac Matongo would take over their functions.

Zimbabwe Independent
Editor’s Memo

I THOROUGHLY enjoyed the piece we ran on our opinion pages last week by veteran journalist Bill Saidi.

In a typically rasp allegory, Saidi had this to say about the Anti-Corruption minister Paul Mangwana’s hairstyle: “He will always be remembered for a very peculiar hairstyle; or the lack of one. His hair looks uncombed most of the time. Perhaps this is how he wants to be recognised; as Harold Wilson was recognised by his pipe, Margaret Thatcher by her hats, Helmut Schmidt by his snuff, Fidel Castro by his beard and Mugabe by his dyed hair.”

Sithembiso Nyoni’s head is always adorned with fascinating hairstyles and perhaps that could be how she wants to be recognised. Like the Indian premier Morarji Desai who drank his own urine for medicinal purposes, everything about her demeanour appears normal and straightforward until her political life is factored in. Desai eventually let out the shocking secret about his life and his whole history drowned in the acrid liquid.

Perchance Sithembiso will one day tell us the secret of her political survival and how she appears to have become an extremely useful person in the government of President Mugabe.

She does not need to win an election to remain in government. She appears to live a charmed life in which the presidential crane is always at hand to pluck her from the political scrapyard, which is where the electorate in Zimbabwe believes she belongs.

The president was involved in one such rescue operation this week after Sithembiso lost in last weekend’s senate vote in Magwegwe-Lobengula.

To finish off the operation, President Mugabe then put up a mesmerising juggling act. Edna Madzongwe, a non-constituency MP and deputy Speaker of Parliament, was shifted from the lower house to become President of the Senate. The vacancy in the lower house then went to Sithembiso and with it, the reappointment to the portfolio of Small Enterprises Development minister.