Feuding factions of Zimbabwe’s main opposition are to hold separate congresses in coming weeks to elect new leaders, officials said on Tuesday, in a move that would confirm the split within the party.
Once a major political force challenging President Robert Mugabe’s grip on power, the Movement for Democratic Change has become mired in infighting over leader Morgan Tsvangirai’s decision to boycott Senate elections last November.
A faction led by Tsvangirai’s Vice-President Gibson Sibanda and secretary general Welshman Ncube has been holding meetings to elect delegates to a MDC congress planned for next month.
”The official MDC congress is on during the third week of February to choose the people to lead the party for the next five years,” Ncube told Agence France-Presse.
”If there is any other congress besides that, it’s not an MDC congress.”
But Nelson Chamisa, a spokesperson for the rival faction led by Tsvangirai, said their congress, for which delegates are being chosen in a separate set of meetings, would take place in March.
”The MDC congress is going to be held in March, some time in the second week,” Chamisa said.
”Those who are creating parallel structures to hold a parallel congress in February are wasting their time. There is only one MDC led by president Tsvangirai.”
Created in 1999 with former trade union leader Tsvangirai as its leader, the MDC made major gains in the 2000 parliamentary elections but lost ground in last year’s March elections that the party dismissed as a sham.
Tsvangirai lost to Mugabe in the 2002 presidential election that he claimed was rigged.
The MDC leader in November sparked a rebellion within party ranks when he decided to boycott the elections to a new senate.
Saying the boycott was not endorsed by the party leadership, the faction led by Sibanda expelled Tsvangirai for misconduct including breaching the party’s constitution.
The former trade unionist scoffed at the move and suspended six leaders from the rival faction claiming they were neglecting party business while fomenting division in the party.
Sibanda claims his faction has the backing of 24 of the MDC’s 41 members of Parliament while both groups claim they have the blessing of the party’s national council drawn from Zimbabwe’s 10 provinces.
The infighting has left MDC supporters confused as both factions claim legitimacy.
”I will wait from a distance and see what happens,” said Damion Milanzi, an MDC supporter, who runs a newsstand in central Harare.
”Many supporters have taken that stance because they don’t want to be seen joining the wrong group.”
The feud took an ominous turn last month when Tsvangirai claimed that he had evidence his former colleagues had conspired with Mugabe’s party ”to create a convenient opportunity and circumstances in which some in the leadership, including the MDC president, are to be harmed and even physically eliminated”.
The faction led by Sibanda has filed a Z$100-billion ($1,1-million) defamation suit against Tsvangirai.
”There is absolutely no truth in those claims,” lawyer Nicholas Mathonsi said.
MDC spokesperson Paul Themba Nyathi, who is in the Sibanda-led faction, accused Tsvangirai’s faction of breaching party principles by advocating violence.
”We don’t believe in going onto the streets to install an unelected president,” he said.
”This is where we will always differ with Tsvangirai and his group. We can’t be expected to have a unified party led by a president with dictatorial tendencies.” – AFP
