SouthScan (London)
The opposition Movement for Democratic Change seems to be heading for a split after a dispute between its leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, and the party’s vice president Gibson Sibanda over the upcoming November 26 senate elections.
Tsvangirai has been touring the country to mobilize support for his policy of boycotting the poll, while the majority of the party’s national council wants to engage. Indications are that he will seek to reform the party on the basis of its earlier mass support.
He appeared to be winning over party leaders in 10 out of the 12 provinces, but whatever the outcome of his tour the split has become public and is likely to damage the effectiveness of opposition to the ruling Zanu-PF party.
Tsvangirai had ordered the MDC to boycott the senate poll, but its 66-member executive narrowly voted in favor of participation. Tsvangirai stormed out of its October 12 meeting.
Earlier MDC vice president Sibanda accused him of threatening senior party officials who were in favour of participating in the elections, and of breaching the party’s constitution by overruling the decision by the MDC national council to contest the poll.
Sibanda’s statement said inquiries into “violent activities” against some national and provincial party officials established the involvement of Tsvangirai’s office and his bodyguards. The party fired two of the bodyguards, but Tsvangirai allegedly rehired them, Sibanda said.
Rebuilding support
The MDC was formed in 1999 on the back of Tsvangirai’s trade union support, mixed with the commercial farming lobby and disgruntled members of the urban middle classes who were being kept out of the Zanu-PF patronage game. It was therefore always a volatile mix, but was seriously weakened by the collapse of the white farming group after the takeover of their farms and the failure of international pressure to force a reversal on President Robert Mugabe.
Its officials have also been under constant pressure from the security apparatus of Zanu-PF and it has been unable – or was too divided – to mobilize any sizeable popular response to Mugabe’s actions, most notably against his recent mass removals in Harare and other towns.
Tsvangirai’s current campaign trail around the country is only the latest of his attempts to break through to his supporters directly, and to workers, youth, and informal and particularly female traders, who have in the past been vociferous against Mugabe. He has also begun a “solidarity walk” to work each day to publicise the lack of fuel in the country and to talk directly to supporters in Harare.
In these activities he seems to be viewed as still an active threat to the government. An alleged secret police report published by the exile ZimOnline website in South Africa has him topping a list of allegedly dangerous individuals to be monitored by the Central Intelligence Organisation.
Tsvangirai is also securing backing from civil society bodies. The National Constitutional Assembly (NCA), a loose alliance of political, church, women’s and student groups, and also on the police watch list, called the elections to create an upper house of parliament “meaningless” and a “waste of time and resources.”
“The NCA urges ordinary Zimbabweans to refuse to be complicit in ZANU-PF’s exploitative grand scheme for diverting national and international attention from the root cause of suffering in Zimbabwe, that is a failed government,” NCA spokeswoman Jessie Majome told a news conference.
A new 66-seat upper house, including 50 elected members, was created by a recent constitutional amendment. It will comprise 10 traditional chiefs, 50 elected senators and six appointed by Mugabe. Critics say it will strengthen the stranglehold of Zanu-PF.
The NCA said it watched with “disgust the feuding and bickering” in the MDC “a party that espouses democratic ideals”.
“Every Zimbabwean must refuse to be used and abused by aspiring politicians who wish to climb over them to reach the dictated senate… for personal wealth creation and self aggrandisement,” the NCA added.
The alleged police report published in ZimOnline says the Joint Operations Command (JOC), comprising the police, the Central Intelligence Organisation and the army, has drawn up a list of 55 political and civic leaders it says are the “most dangerous individuals” who must be kept under surveillance.
Tsvangirai tops the list that also includes Mugabe’s former chief propagandist and now independent MP, Jonathan Moyo. In the 20-page internal report to deputy police commissioner responsible for operations Godwin Matanga, a police representative on the JOC, Edmore Veterai, wrote, “We must not fool ourselves by believing that the situation is normal on the ground …”, adding that hostility was growing and “people turning to the opposition, which they see as their Messiah”.
“They will not hesitate to join any demonstrations called for by the opposition and the NCA (National Constitutional Assembly) in their so-called push for change.”
Veterai is a senior assistant police commissioner and is in charge of police in Harare province. His report, dated September 30, 2005 was also copied to Home Affairs Minister Kembo Mohadi, but Mohadi denied knowledge of it.
Police spokesman Wayne Bvudzijena told ZimOnline the recent cancellation of leave and retraining of anti-riot police officers referred to in Veterai’s report was only meant to prepare police officers ahead of next month’s senate election.
The authenticity of the report, as with much else in Zimbabwe’s official domain, is difficult for journalists to verify since under the government’s Public Order and Security Act and the Official Secrets Act it is an offence to publish confidential state security information.
Besides Tsvangirai and Moyo, others on the security agencies’ list of dangerous people are Sibanda, MDC secretary general Welshman Ncube and the party MPs Job Sikhala, David Coltart, and Priscilla Misihairabwi-Mushonga.
NCA chairman Lovemore Madhuku is also on the list, with Catholic Archbishop Pius Ncube, Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions president Lovemore Matombo, Zimbabwe Progressive Teachers Union secretary general Raymond Majongwe and Felix Mafa, of the Post Independence Survivors Trust.