In the latest power play in the divided Zimbabwean opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), the Morgan Tsvangirai faction has hand-delivered letters to estranged office bearers Gibson Sibanda and Welshman Ncube, inviting them to attend the party’s congress at the weekend.
”We are inviting Gibson Sibanda as vice-president, we are inviting Welshman Ncube as secretary general … we don’t recognise factions in the MDC. This is a platform for them to air their grievances,” spokesperson for the Tsvangirai camp, Nelson Chamisa, told the Mail & Guardian on recently.
Sibanda and Ncube could not be reached for comment. Paul Themba-Nyathi, a spokesperson for the pro- Senate MDC faction, however, dismissed the Tsvangirai overture as a ”hoax”. ”I don’t see why they should send invitations to them. I don’t know in what capacity they are being invited.”
The pro-Senate president, Arthur Mutambara, did not crack an invite because ”we don’t know Mutambara. He is not even a member. He is not in the grassroots structures of the party,” Chamisa said cynically.
The party split into two factions last year after fallout over participation in the Senate elections.
Tsvangirai’s anti-Senate camp is set to re-elect him as party president at the congress under the theme ”Rallying People for a New Zimbabwe”. Changes to the Constitution and developing strategies to unseat the ruling Zanu-PF government are top of the agenda.
Chamisa said the gathering of about 10 000 delegates in Harare will be a tribute to ”all the brave women and men who sacrificed their lives, property and were beaten and disabled by the Zanu-PF regime because they were members of the MDC”.
But the party’s urban constituency’s blood is no longer quickened by opposition politics but by the more pressing politics of the stomach.
Political analyst at the University of Zimbabwe, Eldred Masungunure, said: ”Zimbabweans are looking for the resolution of the economic crisis. I don’t think this congress or the [pro-Senate] one before it will have a dramatic effect on the political landscape.”
A security guard, Nicholas Muzavazi, said: ”We have not heard much about the congress but we support Tsvangirai nevertheless.”