“The main message is that the struggle continues as the elections were stolen and the people should stand up and resist the daylight robbery. The (MDC-T) president will also be meeting with strategic partners such as civil society organisations,” said an inside source. The party is reeling from Zanu (PF)’s monumental electoral fraud and SADC’s shocking announcement in Lilongwe at the weekend that Mugabe would succeed Malawi’s Joyce Banda as the chairperson of the regional body next year.
Party members are devastated by what they see as a lack of leadership and have lashed out at those at the top – especially those who they perceive to have missed the golden opportunity to effect change while sitting in Parliament for the past five years. The party’s long-standing treasurer, Roy Bennett, resigned last week saying he was utterly frustrated at the arrogance of those in leadership.
Social networks are awash with calls for an armed struggle or some form of passive resistance to provide a focus for people’s frustrations.
Tsvangirai is said to have launched a nation-wide grassroots outreach campaign to fortify his supporters in the wake of the shocking failure by regional and African bodies to conduct an audit into the mountain of rigging evidence amassed by opposition parties and civil society organisations.
“Tsvangirai considers the outreach offensive a crucial strategy that will not only bring faith back into the party but also give a rude awakening to Mugabe and Zanu (PF) that they stole the election and cannot get away with that,” said the source on condition of anonymity.
The national spokesperson, Douglas Mwonzora confirmed the emergency meeting, saying “We will be reviewing our position at a special retreat of the National Executive. We are going to be re-strategising regarding how we can carry forward with the struggle but I would like to assure you that we are not going to tire in fighting tyranny.”
Tsvangirai’s spokesperson, Luke Tamborinyoka, insisted to The Zimbabwean that the party still had options to revitalise itself in the post-election period, maintaining that they had not yet exhausted the diplomatic route.
“Of course, what happened at the SADC summit dampens spirits but we remain positive. SADC is still to issue its final report on the elections and we are engaging all the countries in the region,” he said.
Both SADC and African Union observer teams, whose assessments are considered key, are yet to issue their final reports on the elections, which in their preliminary reports they described as free and credible, but held back from declaring fair.
Our contact acknowledged that there were hawks within the National Executive Council who wanted to use the election disaster to dislodge Tsvangirai, saying they were not coming out in the open yet “because they fear political suicide”.
“The reality is that these people know that it will be an uphill task because, unlike Tsvangirai, they don’t have grassroots support. They cannot win against him,” said the source, adding that a small number in the youth and women’s wings also wanted Tsvangirai to go.
There have been reports of Tendai Biti, the Secretary General, gunning for Tsvangirai’s position and mobilising a faction in the nationwide structures to achieve that, but he has dismissed that.
Tamborinyoka dismissed talk of jostling for his boss’s post as unfounded.
“It is hogwash. Leadership is an issue for congress. The party’s national council, which is the supreme body outside of congress, met recently and affirmed Tsvangirai as the party leader. We are a democratic party and congress is the only platform for leadership challenges. Anything else is just bar talk or emanating from Zanu (PF).
“Tsvangirai is a victim of (electoral) fraud and there is no way that we can be tempted to victimise the victim,” he said.
Other highly placed sources confirmed that Tsvangirai had resolved to go back to the grassroots to engage the people because his lieutenants were letting him down.
“He (Tsvangirai) does not trust some of the key leaders anymore because he has discovered that they have hidden agendas and misrepresent facts to him. He is taking more responsibilities to be with the people and assess the situation on his own,” said another contact at Harvest House.
Official results released by the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission claim that President Robert Mugabe got 61 percent of the votes in the presidential race, against Tsvangirai’s 34 percent, while Zanu (PF) garnered 160 seats in Parliament and MDC-T 49. Several dossiers of incidents of rigging have been compiled by both wings of the MDC as well as local and regional NGOs.
Post published in: News
Beside the fact that the election was stolen, the MDC-T especially Tsvangirai as the leader need to reflect on where they went wrong. Here are some points that need noting.
1. The kitchen cabinet has and will always be Tsvangirai’s weakness. I belive that though Welshan was a power hungry Secretary General, Tsvangirai did not exhibit leadership in dealing with the Senate issue and the Makones (Tsvangirai’s kitchen cabinet) were part of the dreat MDC split.
2. The MDC was never to participate in the GNU given that they were the winner. They were suppose to let the House burn but Tsvangirayi said that he wanted to prevent the suffering of the masses — that was a foolish political move or maybe Tsvangirayi was only looking at being in government and being a non-executive/toothless bulldog prime minister. Furthermore from the rumuors at that time Tsvangirayi was taking advise from the Americam diplomats (that was not wise).
3. The case of Ari Ben Manshe (the Israel guy) exposed the naive nature of the MDC leadership.
4. MDC was a revolutionary part before — demonstrating even when the law does not permit but now it appears like a tamed and drugged lion — good for nothing. An election is stolen from you and when the people are ready to go on the street you start filing a useless court case which you know you were going to withdraw (coz the courts are Zanu PF’s i.e., the Electoral judges were appointed using the Emergency powers of the president). The same was the case in 2002 I was one of the voter’s who were ready to go to the street to demand our vote but the MDC leadership did nothing.
5. When Khupe, Biti and associated boycotted cabinet when Tsvangirayi was absent I was happy that now the MDC is playing ball but then Tsvangirayi came back and did another foolish move — re-engage with Mugabe without any political gain — making his leutenants look bad.
6. Now that he was Prime minister, he started bedding all sorts of women, from SA, Bulawayo, Harare etc. If you are to fight BOB u have to be perfect — look at how Pius Ncube was destroyed!
7. Now when we are at this junctor when elections are stolen you start going to the grassroots — for what!! We need plan B or else step aside for a new leader man.
NOT AT ALL. IT IS ZANU(PF)IN CRISIS. JUST WAIT AND SEE DOWN THE LINE.
They should let one of the newspapers or print the rigging evidence online or just publish otherwise it’s all denial if they want the people to believe them . They were celebrating that they were winning and all of a sudden just changed , Why ? They should publish the evidence if they have any or it’s just wishful thinking ..vari pa denial vanhu Ava . !!!
Shame MDC-T has been grossly inconsistent check from the land reform programme via the indeginisation programme to the gay rights issue, Tsvangirai hasnt been firm about his position about the aforementioned issues. He was always busy flip flopping spending much of his time attacking president mugabe instead of coming up with concrete polocies which can convince the electorate to vote for the so called “change” which they claim to be advocating for. they wanted to win elections at the expense of the suffering of the people whom they claim to be representing. Sanctions is their trojan horse which they want to use to gallop into power, the unfortunate part to them is that Zimbabweans have developed a thick skin in the face of sanctions and are now mainly inclined towards seeking home grown solutions for economic success. Why does the EU have to discredit elections before the actual voting, this is a clear indication that they are the ones who are pulling the strings to control MDC. MDC is a puppet party.
Poor Morgan and his MDC, they wanted to win the elections thru SADC not the popular vote. Pity, love them all you can, the party will never come back, no grass roots revitilisation coz they have none at all. only European structures in downing hall and white house. wake-up
Another waste of time. Nothing of substance or progressive will come out of that meeting, they are already tripping over each other for positions. Another GNU coming, this time to sink the party for good. Watch
saying he was utterly frustrated at the arrogance of those in leadership.seo
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