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Mr Tsvangirai

THE Movement for Democratic Change party led by Morgan Tsvangirai is an idea whose time has come and gone judging by the latest developments in the beleaguered opposition movement.

Since being comprehensively trounced by Zanu-PF in the July 2013 general elections, the party has been at sixes and sevens with no clue on how to extricate itself from the morass it finds itself in. The split which led to the birth of the Renewal Team has not helped matters either with Tsvangirai and his cohorts battling to ward off criticism from their erstwhile colleagues that they have lost the moral compass and deviated from the founding values of the party.

Tendai Biti, Elton Mangoma and their group have been punching holes in Tsvangirai’s armour at every turn and in the process exposed the ineptitude of the MDC leader. The result is that the MDC-T is now fast receding from the political scene and could be history by the time the next general elections are held in 2018.

Accusations of undemocratic and autocratic tendencies have been levelled by the Renewal Team against Tsvangirai and the latest provincial party congresses being held across the country have exposed the party hierarchy and spawned further turmoil.

Elections in provinces such as Matabeleland North, Bulawayo and the Midlands were marred by allegations of rigging, manipulation, intimidation and other such skullduggery with groups aligned to Tsvangirai and his deputy Thokozani Khupe alleged to be behind the shenanigans.

In Bulawayo, the election of Deputy Mayor Gift Banda to the helm of the provincial leadership was met with mass defections by party loyalists chief among them Pumula legislator Albert Mhlanga and Member of Parliament under proportional representation Gladys Mathe.

The two senior party officials said they were taking more than 500 cadres from the provincial structures to the Renewal Team and were on Monday paraded by Dr Samuel Sipepa Nkomo – chairman of the Biti group. Mhlanga, the former MDC-T organising secretary for Bulawayo, made damaging allegations against the conduct of Tsvangirai and Khupe during the chaotic weekend congress.

He accused Tsvangirai of aiding factions to rig and quipped: “All rules of procedure were blatantly violated and Morgan Tsvangirai was hapless, hopeless and powerless and acted with complicity towards the shenanigans of vote manipulation by his deputy and company”.

According to Mhlanga, the outcome of the congress confirmed the Renewal Team’s sentiments that the MDC-T was an idea whose time had come and gone and has no moral ground to challenge Zanu-PF.

“I wish to let the public know that it has become virtually impossible for us to continue belonging to that party (MDC-T) anymore,” said Mhlanga.

“In fact it is practically impossible for any sane individual who experiences the events of a provincial congress to ignore the criticism that has been levelled against MDC-T.  The provincial congress confirmed beyond any reasonable doubt that MDC-T no longer respects the norms and values of democracy and its own constitution.”

Mhlanga alleged that the congress was used by MDC-T deputy president Khupe and Abednicho Bhebhe to “impose their friends, relatives, financiers and bootlickers” as leaders of the province against the party’s constitution, electoral template and guidelines of the party’s internal democracy. He said members of the standing committee behaved like “a bunch of petulant school kids, puffing and ranting as they competed in excluding everyone believed to be outside their faction”.

As the fallout from the weekend circus continued yesterday, the MDC-T leader was reportedly in panic mode and sent emissaries to convince the defectors, particularly Mhlanga, to return. The grovelling, allegedly being led by national organising secretary Nelson Chamisa and deputy national chairman Morgan Komichi, emphasises the importance the party attaches to the defectors.

Bulawayo is the stronghold of the MDC-T but its hold on the province is loosening as evidenced by the strong showing by Zanu-PF candidates in the 2013 election. Even though they lost, Zanu-PF parliamentary candidates gave their MDC-T counterparts a run for their money and lost by narrow margins and the 2018 poll might be an intriguing contest.

The MDC-T is therefore shooting itself in the foot and digging itself into a bigger hole by taking the people of Bulawayo for granted. By imposing its preferred leadership on the province, the MDC-T top brass is effectively thumbing its nose at the city’s electorate and flouting the very same democratic ethos it claims to advance. It is now up to the people of Bulawayo to either put up with the autocratic leadership of the MDC-T or show the party the red card.