Zimbabwe Opposition Leader Says Party is United Again

Zimbabwean opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai on Tuesday said there was renewed unity within the party following talks aimed at bringing an end to months of infighting.

"We have discussed our issues and there is now unprecedented harmony and unity of purpose in the MDC cockpit," Tsvangirai told journalists in the capital Harare after a meeting of top officials of his Movement for Democratic Change.

"The party is not in turmoil. Of course this was just a bleep in the struggle."

The MDC has been riven by tensions since ex-premier Tsvangirai was beaten at the polls by veteran President Robert Mugabe last July.

The bickering escalated after deputy treasurer and former energy minister Elton Mangoma was suspended this month for publicly calling on Tsvangirai to resign over the election defeat.

Several other party officials including exiled treasurer Roy Bennett, lawmaker Eddie Cross and former organizing secretary Elias Mudzuri have made similar calls, but only Mangoma was censured.

Tsvangirai, whose terms expires in 2016, said indiscipline in the party would not be tolerated.

"Leadership unity is not negotiable," he said. "As we move forward. It's time to re-mobilize."

The MDC, which until last year was locked in an uneasy power-sharing government with Mugabe's ZANU-PF, is seen as the most credible challenge to the 90-year-old leader's hold on power and analysts say the country can ill afford a divided opposition.

In 2008, the party came close to toppling Mugabe when Tsvangirai won the first round of presidential elections but failed to garner the majority required to be declared outright winner.

In the same election the party made history by becoming the first opposition party to win a majority in parliament.