Contrary to his previous stance that he was the genuine MDC-T Acting President, Chamisa declared in a Saturday morning tweet that the issue of who the genuine Acting President of the party is will now be decided through invoking the MDC-T constitition.
“We shall lead and win. In the few days ahead, the MDCT constitution shall govern and the People shall decide!” wrote Chamisa.
Chamisa had, twenty four hours earlier, tweeted that he is the genuine MDC-T Acting President and had already “pressed the reset button” of the 18 year old movement.
His statement was under played by a counter statement by rival core Vice President Elias Mudzuri who declared that he had met with hospitalised party President Morgan Tsvangirai who confirmed him as Acting President.
Mudzuri’s statement was attested to by members of Tsvangirai family who indicated that Chamisa had not at all met with Tsvangirai in hospital nor discussed the issue except Mudzuri.
In his tweet Chamisa implored that the party was running out of campaign time while it is busy on succession issues calling for an immediate intervention of the party members to decide who should lead the party.
“We’ve little time before the crucial elections.We must campaign in earnest,” said Chamisa.
“We’re an 18 yr organization with rules & procedures which shall be followed,” he added.
The MDC-T constitition says that in the case that the party’s sitting president is incapacitated in leading the party, the Vice President of the party takes over leadership and leads the party to a special congress to elect the new leader within a year.
The clause in the constitition was inserted when the party had only one Vice President elected at the party congress. It ignores the 2015 adjustment that was made by Tsvangirai when he added two more Vice Presidents Mudzuri and Chamisa to Thokozani Khuphe who had been Tsvangirai’s deputy since the 2005 split of the party.
If the constitition is therefore left to decide, then Khuphe who is the only congress elected Vice President is rightfully entitled to be the Acting President.
Post published in: Featured