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Africa Moyo Deputy News Editor
NEWLY-elected MDC-Alliance treasurer general Mr David Coltart says opposition leader Mr Nelson Chamisa has no capacity to turn around the country’s economy “in months”, even if he were to become President “tomorrow”.

Mr Coltart, in a brutal assessment of the opposition, told a private media outlet on the sidelines of the just-ended congress in Gweru that the outfit was not in a position to convince the electorate to vote for it.

He advised party supporters to lower their “expectations, both nationally and within the party”.

Ironically, Mr Chamisa is pushing for a hybrid government that includes him and his party, which he calls a “transitional authority”, presumably because he has the magic wand.

But said Mr Coltart: “If (Mr) Nelson Chamisa became President of Zimbabwe tomorrow, he would not be able to turn around the fortunes of Zimbabwe in a day, in weeks, in a few months.

“The problems in our nation are deep rooted and are gonna take a lot of determination . . .”

President Mnangagwa is implementing a cocktail of measures to turn around the fortunes of the country, with his marquee policy being Vision 2030, which aims to achieve an upper middle income economy status in 11 years’ time. Mr Coltart noted that MDC-Alliance was disorganised and not ready for the huge task of running the country.

He said: “. . . we cannot say to the electorate, now I am talking way beyond the members here, I am talking about the rank and file who are not members of the MDC; we cannot say to them that we are qualified to run the country well if we can’t run our own party well.

“This is the starting point. That’s the challenge that we have in the next few years before the next elections. We have to show that we can run this party well, far more efficiently than it has been run. And then if we do that, not only are we going to energise our members and mobilise our members, but we can then demonstrate to the broader electorate that we are competent and capable to run this country . . .”