Tsvangirai crushes revolt- 10 provinces resolve to boycott Senate elections
MOVEMENT for Democratic Change (MDC) leader Morgan Tsvangirai yesterday appeared to regain control of the party after last week’s serious fallout over the forthcoming senatorial elections, with 10 provinces now expected to boycott next month’s poll.
Four provinces that had last week resolved to participate in the November 26 election, yesterday turned around and aligned themselves with Tsvangirai, whose decision to override last Wednesday’s national council vote to participate in the poll sparked the worst crisis to hit the six-year-old party. Matabeleland North, Midlands North and South as well as Manicaland – the scene of violent intra-party clashes this week – now look set to join Harare, Chitungwiza, Mashonaland Central, East and West and Masvingo in boycotting the election and are unlikely to send any candidates to Monday’s decisive nomination proceedings.
Although most provincial leaders interviewed last night declined to commit themselves on the contentious issue, indications were that most were buckling under pressure from the districts, which were backing Tsvangirai’s decision to boycott the polls.
Patrick Kombayi, publicity secretary in the Midlands South province, last night said the province’s eight districts had resolved to rescind the decision made by their chairman Lyson Mlambo at the council meeting.
“The MDC Midlands South province with its eigth districts unanimously agreed and resolved that we will not take part in the senatorial elections. It was also resolved that the province is solidly behind president Morgan Tsvangirai,” Kombayi said.
The MDC’s key ally, the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) yesterday threw its weight behind Tsvangirai, with labour leader Lovemore Matombo saying the congress did “not support the Senate elections.”
“As the ZCTU leadership, we agreed that there is no genuine desire by the current establishment to create a beneficial Senate,” Matombo said.
As indications increased that its rebellion was crumbling, a faction led by party vice president Gibson Sibanda and secretary general Welshman Ncube, which is agitating for the MDC’s participation, yesterday issued a stinging statement accusing Tsvangirai of “willfully violating the MDC constitution.”
The faction, which had scheduled a mid-morning press conference at a city hotel yesterday, was forced to retreat after Tsvangirai summoned Sibanda for an emergency meeting.
Although Sibanda, who briefly addressed journalists in the company of party spokesperson Paul Themba Nyathi, said the party would call another press conference after a meeting of the management committee, the meeting never took place.
“The president called and we discussed the crisis that the party is facing and after outlining the issues, we agreed to meet as elected officers of congress. We will meet this afternoon,” Sibanda said.
As it emerged that the meeting was unlikely to take place, Nyathi told The Financial Gazette that it was still scheduled.
“They are still waiting for others who aren’t here, but it will take place,” Nyathi said.
Ncube, on the other hand, said he had “absolutely no idea” if the meeting was to take place, referring questions to Sibanda. “The vice president is coordinating that.”
However, the meeting did not take place, with Sibanda reportedly telling Tsvangirai that he could not locate two members of the management committee – deputy secretary general Gift Chimanikire and treasurer-general Fletcher Dulini-Ncube. Although the two were reported to have left town early in the afternoon, Dulini-Ncube was spotted in the company of Sibanda, Ncube and Pumula-Luveve MP Esaph Mdlongwa at another city hotel.
A statement issued last night by the MDC information department and bore Sibanda’s name said the current crisis in the MDC was “the culmination of sad events in the party since the beginning of the year.”
“The first incident occurred when a certain section of the party sponsored some unruly youths to engage in violent activities against senior national and provincial executive members of the party.
“An inquiry was conducted and it revealed the close involvement of the president’s office, culminating in national council taking a resolution to expel these youths from the party. The national council also resolved to dismiss Washington Gaga and Nhamo Musekiwa, who were working as bodyguards in the president’s office, after they were found to have been responsible for coordinating the violent activities of these two officers.”
The statement further stated that officers in Tsvangirai’s office who had been implicated in the violent activities “seem to have been protected by the president.
Although the statement fell short of making a declaration, it accused Tsvangirai of going back on his word that he and everyone else should respect the outcome of the voting process in council. It also accused Tsvangirai of misrepresenting the outcome of the council meeting violating the party’s constitution, which he was supposed to uphold and defend.
“The MDC was founded on principles which include democracy, freedom, transparency and justice. The party is determined to uphold these principles and values and will not allow one person or a group of persons to destroy them,” Sibanda said.
However, Tsvangirai’s office dismissed the allegations contained in the statement as false.
“Mr. Tsvangirai suspects that the document in circulation is a fraud. The vice president was in town and met the president. They discussed many things and no mention was made by the vice president of the contents of the said document. What makes the document more suspicious is that it is signed by another person other than Mr. Sibanda himself. The president believes there are some people in the party and elsewhere who are up to mischief, generating various documents purporting to amplify a position made in good faith by senior members of the party in favour of participating in the senate elections. These were divergent views which do not, in any way, mean that the party is in danger,” Tsvangirai’s spokesperson William Bango said.
However, MDC insiders this week drew a trail of events that suggested the existence of bad blood between Tsvangirai, on the one hand, and the rest of the management committee, on the other.
“Was the senate election really the issue? Is there more to this debacle than what is on the surface? A pattern of developments in the party since his (Tsvangirai’s) arrest for treason in 2002 shows a clear determination to undermine him and make him irrelevant to the political process.
“You remember Ncube and Sibanda moving the main communications center for the 2005 election to Bulawayo without his (Tsvangirai’s) knowledge? Before then, the argument that the party election campaign should be launched in Bulawayo.
Tsvangirai put his foot down and insisted on Masvingo for the launch. He was punished for it. The treasury refused to release the money, about $200 million. Tsvangirai had to find money and the launch went ahead. You remember Gibson and Gonese going to State House without his knowledge? You remember David Coltart putting in a draft constitution, which only Gibson, Welshman, Gonese and a few others had seen, when Amendment Number 17 was put in Parliament without Tsvangirai’s knowledge. Tsvangirai ordered that the draft be withdrawn and that was done, but enough damage had already been made”, said a party insider.
Other sources within the beleaguered party said this was nothing more than a power game as the draft had a clause which stated that a President should have an earned university degree, not an honorary. Tsvangirai was the target they said adding that some in the leadership wanted to test Tsvangirai’s “power and resolve, in a dry ruin just before congress. The senate nonsense just became the setting”.
They blamed this on a plot allegedly hatched with the connivance of “some western governments, the South Africans and influential players in business and the NGO community”, to sideline Tsvangirai and create a coalition of those considered reasonable between some senior MDC officials and a progressive wing in ZANU PF.
“There is a ZANU PF dimension to what is going on. Both factions in ZANU PF hate Tsvangirai with a passion, he seems to be a stumbling block to a number of things. The group in the MDC wants to work with either faction in ZANU PF but find Tsvangirai as a problem because he pursues a simple political philosophy that shuns the boardroom and promotes a mass-line approach. His popularity has to do with that approach, which tends to put ordinary people at the forefront”, another source said.
According to the sources the ZANU PF dimension was interesting in other respects. It sucked in foreign governments and key players in the business and NGO community. Way back in 2002, they said, there were concerted efforts and funding for an alternative leadership of the MDC. The argument then was that a solution was not possible in Zimbabwe because (President Robert) Mugabe and Tsvangirai could never be brought together. The best way out was therefore to find a coalition of the reasonable from both ZANU PF and the MDC and create an acceptable regime. The MDC would be the junior partner in that arrangement, holding the office of the prime minister.
“Those for this argument caused Tsvangirai, at the middle of his trial, to allow Welshman Ncube to talk to (Justice Minister Patrick) Chinamasa as suggested by South Africa with the blessing of (President) Mugabe. Mugabe even praised Ncube as a reasonable man in one of his speeches, compared to Tsvangirai,” the source said.
Ncube and Chinamasa went on to agree and sign a document proposing constitutional changes in which the post of prime minister was one. Tsvangirai is understood to have taken Ncube to task over why he had already signed an agreement with Chinamasa without putting it either to the national executive, the national council or himself first.
The agreement had other contentious issues, which Tsvangirai felt were not well thought out and could plunge the party and Zimbabwe into problems.
“In addition, there were forays by (ZANU PF stalwart Emmerson) Mnangagwa and (retired general Vitalis) Zvinavashe, using colonel Lionel Dyke, but what is of interest is that the South Africans, the British and some European countries were keen to see this coalition of the reasonable taking over power, with a sanitised ZANU PF party largely in charge.”
-fingaz
Posted by Wellington Chadehumbe
on October 25, 2005. Filed under Local News.
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