The long-standing relationship between Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) president Morgan Tsvangirai and his deputy, Gibson Sibanda, is one of the casualties of the party feud over participation in the Senate elections. Their close and more than professional rapport for almost two decades of activism in the labour movement and the MDC has been irrevocably put on ice.
The Mail & Guardian has reliably learnt that Sibanda was astounded by the blistering attack on him by his leader during telephonic discussions with President Thabo Mbeki two weeks ago. A furious Tsvangirai, who snubbed Mbeki’s offer to mediate between MDC factions, is said to have branded Sibanda “a liar and dishonest man”. His anger was triggered by Sibanda’s reaction to his defiance of an MDC national council decision on the controversial polls, set for November 26.
In her biography on Tsvangirai, Sarah Huddleston wrote of the “extremely productive working relationship that was to see them unite Zimbabwean workers”. Others who have known the two since the early 1990s describe them as “close buddies, soul mates” and say that “their personal relationship was a unifying one in that one was Shona and the other Ndebele”. They were instrumental in the formation of the National Constitutional Assembly, which, in the constitutional referendum, inflicted President Robert Mugabe’s only defeat at the ballot box. They are regarded as the founding fathers of the MDC.
“For most people Sibanda was level-headed and acted as a bridge between the Welshman Ncube camp and the Tsvangirai camp. But in the last days he has been perceived as leaning to the Ncube camp,” said Dr Eldred Masungunure of the University of Zimbabwe. “The thinking within the Ncube camp is that Tsvangirai is in breach of the party constitution. Sibanda has been won over by that argument.”