So, the constitutionalism and rule of law champions, Morgan senators Morgan Komichi, and Mwonzora, and doctors Thokozani Khupe and Tapiwa Mashakada, want the world to believe that their own understanding of Constitutionalism is what matters. Constitutionalism requires that people follow the constitution to the later.
By the admission of Khaliphani Phungeni in an interview on Gambwakwe TV, the Whatsapp “National Council” meeting which met in May 2020 and made a resolution to recall parliamentarians was unconstitutional, and there legally a nullity. The appropriate process that should have been followed was for the MDC-T 2014 structures to meet and deliberate on the implementation of the Supreme Court Judgement. No meeting of the MDC-T 2014 structures has met yet, so what this effectively means is that we still have factions of the MDC-T. Some members of the MDC Alliance have jumped ship to join a faction led by Dr Khupe.
One very clear point which many people and institutions have missed is that the Supreme Court judgement did not say you must go and recall each other from Parliament. The Supreme Court ruling said, go and try to hold an Extra-Ordinary Congress of the MDC-T 2014 structures as they were at 14 February 2018 when the founding President died, and if you fail to do that within the stipulated time frame, it is water under the bridge. Of cause, there was the Covid-19 excuse, even though the judgement was passed during Covid-19, with no evidence that it was to slow down, so the original time frame has been extended, and the appropriate 2014 Structures must now move very quickly to follow all due process and elect a replacement.
The good news for the MDC-T-14 members is that precedence was already set by Elias Mashavire when he reversed all the developments that had taken place 2 years after the late Dr Tsvangirai’s death to bring the MDC-T back to its 2014 structures. Gilbert Kagodora and Nason Mamuse have, like Elias Mashavire before them, appealed on an equally compelling constitutional matter, that no due process has been followed. Let Komichi, Mwonzora and Mashakada be reminded that Council meetings that they are holding are Council meetings of the Dr Khupe-led MDC-T faction of 2014 MDC-T and that those decisions are not binding in terms of the Supreme Court ruling, the same way Council meetings of the MDC-Alliance are not binding on the Supreme Court ruling.
I have said it before, that these MDC factions, given the MDC was born out of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions, may have to seek the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions mediation if getting themselves talking to each other to implement the Supreme Court Judgement is proving too hard.
Finally, let me advise the MDC factions, once again, that it is not too late to invite the Zimbabwe Congress to mediate in your affairs before the Supreme Court suggested Extra-Ordinary Congress.