Welshman Ncube, President of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC-N), Zimbabwe HARDtalk

Zimbabwe is gripped by a severe drought which has left a third

of its 15 million people dependent on food aid.

The state is running out of dollars, workers go unpaid and unemployment

is very high - a dire situation that presents the opposition

in the country with an opportunity in nationwide elections in 2018.

My guest today is Welshman Ncube, who leads his own

faction of the Zimbabwean opposition party Movement

for Democratic Change, known as MDC-N.

The main opposition parties have now formed an alliance,

but can they put aside their differences and focus

on defeating President Mugabe and his ruling Zanu-PF?

Welshman Ncube, welcomed to HARDtalk. -- welcome. Your new

opposition alliance is moving too slowly. There are other opposition

forces that are filling the vacuum? Firstly, it is not moving as fast as

we would want to move. The important thing is that it has been confirmed

across the political spectrum that it is absolutely necessary that we

should come together, that we should create a single corner, which is

claimed to sign in the regime change next year. I am happy and confident,

that at the end of all these processors, we will have an

effective and inclusive coalition of all opposition parties who are

interested in challenging the regime together. Let me tell you what I

mean. The younger generation, particularly, are very much taking

up the charge at a grassroots level. Social media is becoming critical.

That is where the opposition lies. We have seen demonstrations becoming

much more common, and they are seizing the initiative from you. It

is correct that the young people are impassioned, it is correct that they

are using more modern ways of communicating. Things like Facebook

and Twitter, they are all talking to each other and talking to us. I

think that is something to be commended rather than complained of

by the mainstream opposition. What is necessary is how we can put

together linkages with the young people who are active on the ground,

to ensure that we harness that energy and that anger towards the

elections in 2018, so that the young people can actually vote and express

themselves through the only thing which will deliver change, which is

speaking out. Is more than just the means that young people are using.

It is actually the personalities who have emerged on the scene as better

leaders than you, perhaps. There is a young pastor who started a social

media campaign against President Mugabe. He is calling on Zimbabweans

to be the agent that change the government, he says their generation

must realise that we cannot subcontract our struggle through the

previous one, and we cannot mortgage it to their selfish desires. He is

critical of your generation for failing to deliver. That is very

understandable. We encourage new leaders, we encourage young people

to be part of this strategy. What is important at the end of the day is

that, when we get to the elections, we come together, young and old. So

that we can fight from the same corner. I do not think that we

should be concerned that the young people are doing what they are

doing. I do not think we should complain that they have raised

issues that we have not succeeded with in the past. Such as relieving

our country from Mugabe's dictatorship. I don't think those

things should unduly concern us. What should be of concern is how we

can harness those energies, how we can work together, how we can agree

on a common ground to get to the next election. It is very good that

young people are doing what they are doing. Work together to the extent

that you may have a young person standing in the presidential

elections in 2018? The past we spoke has said he is toying with the idea.

It is possible that he and others are toying with the idea. What I

have said is important is that we must remain engaged with them as

political players. We must talk to each other. We need a civil society

in its various manifestations to work with us. We can collectively

agree on and so that we give ourselves a realistic chance of

defeating Mugabe. You are saying it's a possibility the charismatic,

Young 39-year-old could be an opposition candidate in the

elections? That is a distinct possibility? I am saying that we

should talk to each other as political partners in civil society,

and I am saying that the ruler of the opposition is yet to be

determined, and I hope when that person is determined, they will be

realistic enough to understand the capacity and be ways to defeat

Mugabe. Not in an idealistic way. That does not sound like a ringing

endorsement. The point I am trying to make is that you say yes, it does

extend their hands to the young generation. More than 75% of

Zimbabwe's population is under 35. However, voters of that age group

are only 5%. That is because they are disillusioned and are looking

for alternatives. The leader of the African Democratic Party says, I

don't see the situation changing because these people lack integrity.

She says, we cannot have the same current players that we have, so why

not just move off the stage? The example that you are giving of

muscling, of the African Democratic Party, they just signed up to join

the coalition of Democrats, which is in the efforts of talking to

everybody to ensure that we build that all-inclusive coalition to

fight the next election -- Marcelline. What is critical at the

end of the day is that we come together, that by agreement and

consensus we agree on the person who should be the opposition leader in

the forthcoming election. I do not think it should be about putting

anybody off the stage, I do not think it should be the young people

being impassioned, it should be a recognition that we are in special

circumstances, we are in a national crisis which requires collective

unity. We need the young people, we need the old people, but more

importantly about the young people, in the previous elections, we have

had a situation where a great number of young people are not registered

to vote. Our challenge for next year is to ensure that this time around,

the young people get to be registered, get to buy into the

political struggles, and crucially, on election day, they get to vote

for the candidate and coalition. Do it is opposition alliance that you

formed a couple of months ago. It is your faction of the MDC-N and the

veteran opposition leader, whose party is known as MDC-T. There is

also another veteran who is now heading her national people's party.

You have all come together. In April, you said that the

understanding between you was that building blocks towards beginning to

build an opposition. You are still using words like beginning,

building. You should have started years ago. It is a bit late. I agree

that we should have been where we are today, maybe one year or two

years ago. It is better late than never. We should recognise that time

is of the essence, there is less than a year to the actual

proclamation of an election. We deserve the criticism that we have

not a word with the speed and urgency that is required. But we are

acting and we are moving forward. We are talking to each other. We are

talking to each other on a daily basis. We have a view to complete

this as early as possible. I accept no contest at all that that is late

in the day, but better late than never. You said in April that you

would apologise to Zimbabweans for the splitting, you also said that he

would vary the hatchet. What exactly what -- was that apology for? What

are the differences between you two? Because of the MDC-N, and the

Movement for Democratic Change split in 2005. That is well known. We

disagreed on a number of things. What we are apologising for in that

time, we needed to spend more time talking to each other. We needed to

spend more time finding ways of remaining together and resolving

those differences, rather than walking away from each other in

seeking to pursue the problem from different corners. That has resulted

in where we are today. That struggle did not succeed because we

dissipated our energies and fought from different corners. We

acknowledge that to remain united, and if we had remained united, we

probably would have defeated Mugabe a long time ago. Thank you for

clarifying that. The deputy to more than Tanqueray, the best-known of

the opposition candidates who stood in the past against Mugabe, he says

that his boss is a natural leader of the grand coalition. However, he did

reveal that he has cancer. Is more than perhaps to seek to leave the

ground coalition? -- lead. I am not a medical person to be able to speak

about President Changarri's health. I have met him a number of times

over the past few months, we have had very extensive discussions. I

have not gotten the impression that he is in any medical state which

will hinder our progress. If it is an inclusive protest and coalition,

I believe it will succeed. From interactions with him, I do not

share the medical concerns that some might express. But I am not a

medical doctor. What is important is that we must keep in mind that, up

until now, President Changarri is the only person who has previously

defeated Mugabe in an election. We must recognise that from previous

elections, he has secured the highest number of votes and it is

important, whatever coalition we build, to ensure that those who have

supported him all along our able to continue to support the collective

position that we will agree on. You are referring to the contested

result in 2008? It is worth reminding you that in 2013, Mugabe

won 61% of the vote. Changarri won 34% of the vote, and your faction

won just 3%. One professor said, despite the unreliability of the

electoral what -- watchdogs in Zimbabwe, he believed that Mugabe

won the election. You talked about a collective view as to who should be

the presidential candidate for the united opposition. Who is it? You

said it could be Changarri, the representative from the national

people's party said, I am going to make a bid for it as well. There is

you, presumably. Who will it be? We don't know who it will be. We

need to agree on who it will be. What we are underlining is the

importance of using objective criteria in coming to the

determination of who that candidate should be and one important tool is

that when we agree on that particular candidate, we must all do

so unconditionally in the rally behind that candidate if we are to

have a fighting chance in dislodging Robert Mugabe from power. You just

summarised the 2013 result and that is what we have to reverse. Who is

going to be the presidential candidate? One Zimbabwean analyst

says, all the claptrap about the coalition, borders around who should

lead and not what the coalition should deliver and that is the

point. You are all jockeying for position, wanting to be the top

person. On the contrary, the conversations which are taking place

right now about the details of the coalition structure, details of

policy positions which the coalition should push on to pursue should it

win the election, they are about discussing what sort of things we

will do to implement the unimplemented elections at the local

government and parliamentary level and so forth and... But who will

stand against President Mugabe? The election is next year, surely we

should know. Is it you, or is it Joice Mujuru, is a Morgan

Tsvangirai, or is it another person? I don't know it will be. I have an

opinion on who it should be. Can you tell us? Discussions are ongoing. It

will be inappropriate for me and in bad faith while we are talking to

others to come on HARDtalk and express that personal opinion. Could

it be you? They might find comfort in declaring themselves... Could it

be you? It could be anybody we agree on. If it's you, can I put to you a

quote which I'm sure you must be familiar with by now. In 2012,

according to Wikileaks, Christopher Dell, then the outgoing Ambassador

to Zimbabwe, said that Welshman Ncube has proved to be a divisive

and destructive player in the opposition ranks and the sooner he

is pushed off the stage, the better. Yes, he did say that, and what is

the question? Perhaps you might be too divisive figure to be a

potential candidate, to stand against Robert Mugabe next year?

Zeinab, if that was true, it will follow the day on the day we agree

on the candidate, it will not be a person with a collective leadership

regards as divisive. I do not accept that assessment but this is not

about me, it is about us coming with a candidate that has the potential

and the capacity to rally the people, to motivate the people to

defeat the Mugabe regime. I would rather we not personalise it and I

would rather we do not pre-empt the conversations that are taking place.

All I know is that we, in selecting a candidate to lead that coalition,

we must choose a person, one who will be able to unify all of us and

two, a person who has sufficient support at the grassroots level to

rally as many voters to our side as possible, a person that we will be

able to work with post- victory to deliver change. You said you are

working on a strategy and frankly the problems persisting Zimbabwe are

huge. Two thirds of people in poverty, a quarter currently need

food aid. We know that a national debt is approaching three time --3

times GDP, Budget deficit out of control, civil servants cannot draw

their salaries from banks. The state of affairs cannot go on and you have

people, seasoned observers like our politics lecturer at the University

of Zimbabwe, who says politics will fail because they don't have a

strategy to tackle all these issues. What we have, as an opposition, we

are criticised a great deal by academics, by intellectuals, by

social commentators, at cetera and I say too much of that criticism, it

is merited but what is important is to recognise that we realise the

challenges that we face are immense. The National crisis is deep. The

country will only sink deeper into this quagmire of we do not deliver

change in 2018. We are talking to each other. We are going to develop

a strategy, that we are going to do everything that we can to ensure

that we motivate people. We reach out to young people, to come out and

vote in 2018. All of those things are the critical ingredients which,

in my view, will deliver victory in 2018. An analyst in Zimbabwe, says

that even without Mugabe, ZANU PF, in its shambolic state, will remain

in power or they will be a government of national unity in 2018

and that seems to be supported by a Afrobarometer survey that says ZANU

PF still hasn't -- has an edge if it were held tomorrow. I have no doubt

about that but I do not agree that ZANU PF is invincible and it can't

be defeated. What is important is that we must recognise the things we

have been able to do to steal elections. Against all of those vote

rigging strategies employed in the past. If we have a modicum of a

fairly violent - free election, I believe that ZANU PF can be

defeated. I interact with people on a daily basis. I know that all the

people want is to be given a fighting chance by a united

opposition in the promise that they are going to come out in the numbers

and liberate themselves are literally from the crisis that we

have. Finally, one of the groups involved in the opposition forces,

particularly amongst the younger -- younger generation. , has been

calling for non-violent resistance against the government. You said you

wanted to walk -- work with all opposition forces. Is that the

strategy you would support to increase the mass protests, the

demonstration, staying away from work? We say it as MDC and as the

various coalition parties, whether under the coalition and Democrats,

we have said so even in the bilateral conversations we have with

the NPP, in our conversations with the MDCT, it is important for every

Zimbabwean, for every social movement, so we can wake -- work

collectively and press all the pressure points that will help us

develop the Mugabe regime next year. Welshman Ncube in Johannesburg,

thank you very much indeed for coming on HARDtalk.