.. but outcome reflects members will Held in Johannesburg on April 9 and presided over by the partys Womens League chair, Theresa Makone, who is also Home Affairs co-Minister, the congress saw all the former leaders losing their seats.
Under the leadership of former chairman, Austin Moyo, the wrote a letter of complaint to the standing committee two weeks ago, raising the alleged irregularities.
We expected the Provincial congress to be conducted only after the Johannesburg one as was directed by the National Chairman Lovemore Moyo. Instead Mrs Makone abandoned the venue with Kwanele Moyo (later voted new chairman) and emerged after two hours.
By the time the duo came, people had already ransacked the gate and forced entry into the voting hall. No verification was done, as Makone proceeded to conduct the elections with questionable members of the electorate who had vandalized the gate.
Entrance into the voting hall was so porous to an extent that even members of the Mthwakazi Party gained access to our ballots and participated in the voting process, after which they walked to the front table and presented Makone with their Party poster.
Makone later opened the Poster only to discover that it was a Mthwakazi Party map and lashed out at the electorate for allowing anyone to access her. She then displayed the Mthwakazi Poster for everyone to see.
They also accused Moyo of openly having openly engaged in vote buying, alleging that he deposited money into bank accounts of several members of the Party, some of who were prepared to testify.
Makone was accused of failing to supervise the counting of votes, which the outgoing executive says was not transparent, as some known members of Johannesburgs two factions counted the votes, while candidates were allegedly kept at bay and never allowed to verify their votes.
Some of the people who counted the votes confessed that figures that Makone announced were not reflective of their counts. It is also on record that Makone told Austin Moyo (Chairman) that she would make sure that some people will never retain their positions. She made the utterance to Moyo as they were coming from the airport to the venue.
While several other members confirmed that no accreditation was done and that there were a few scuffles, during the process, most said the outcome was reflective of the party members will.
Everyone wanted the old leadership to go and that did not change at the congress, so the outcome was fair, said a member of the MDC Veterans Activists Association (VAA).
These people spent their time trying to alienate some structures and support groups of the party from the MDC programmes and cannot then come back to claim that they do not know some of the delegates because everyone who was there was an MDC member. Even if the congress is held again, these people will not. They should also know that there is no party called Mthwakazi, but it is only a pressure group drawing members from various parties.
Solomon Chikohwero, who lost to Kwanele Moyo in the race for provincial chairman, confirmed that there were some irregularities in the process, but said there was no need for the congress to be re-convened.
What matters here is the name of the party and its programmes. I cannot say that because I lost then things should start afresh. It is not about peoples personal ambitions but about the whole of the MDC and the people who won are MDC members, said Chikohwero, who is the partys chair for Johannesburg North district.
Even after the elections, I congratulated the winners and I remain ready to work with them to push the partys agenda forward and further strengthen it, not pull it backwards because the time to squabble over positions in over. We should now focus on the road ahead, which is to remove Mugabe and his Zanu (PF) from power.
Post published in: News