HARARE - As expected, the MDC moved quickly yesterday to expel forthwith its secretary-general Tendai Biti and all the members of his faction who party leaders say had driven the 15-year-old opposition party to the brink when they mutinied over the weekend.
Addressing a brief media conference at the MDC’s national headquarters in Harare, after emergency meetings of the party’s executive and national councils, its leader Morgan Tsvangirai announced, amid loud cheers from the gallery, that all the people who had participated in the rebellious Saturday gathering, including Biti and nine legislators, had been expelled summarily.
The affected MPs would soon be recalled from Parliament.
And as the MDC president spoke, hundreds of expectant supporters waited outside Harvest House singing pro-Tsvangirai songs and chanting his totem (Save) — amid tight police presence.
They were later appraised of the dramatic developments by senior party officials to much jubilation.
Tendai Biti (second from right) celebrates with colleagues after announcing MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai's suspension.
The former PM also announced that the M DC would hold its much-anticipated extra-ordinary congress, meant to unify and re-energise the party, in October this year, where new leaders would be elected.
Originally, the elective congress had been scheduled to take place in 2016 but had now been brought forward to deal with the party’s “cockpit” problems.
The surprisingly calm Tsvangirai noted that he had always been suspicious of Biti, whom he described as a “hypocrite” who for a long time cowardly hid behind former deputy treasurer- general Elton Mangoma, adding that the rebels had effectively expelled themselves from the MDC and formed their own party.
“I do not believe that this is a split. It’s individuals who have decided to form their own party,” he said.
He also said that Biti and Mangoma had ultimately not betrayed him, but the people of Zimbabwe.
In the meantime, Tapiwa Mashakada would act as secretary-general in place of the fired Biti until the October congress.
In the new set up, Women’s Assembly chairperson Theresa Makone takes over from Elton Mangoma as acting deputy treasurer-general, with Costa Machingauta coming in as acting national youth chairperson, replacing Solomon Madzore.
Speaking earlier, the party’s national chairman, Lovemore Moyo, said the immediate sacking of the “coup plotters” was decided in a national council ballot which saw 162 out of 167 delegates voting for the dismissal of the rebels. Five people had abstained from the voting.
Driving the issue of the legitimacy of yesterday’s decisions home, organising secretary Nelson Chamisa, who spoke on behalf of party spokesperson Douglas Mwonzora -- who had reportedly been summoned by police for unknown reasons -- said 37 out of 52 members of the national executive had participated in yesterday’s meetings.
The now expelled rebels congregated on Saturday to “suspend” Tsvangirai and other senior MDC leaders such as vice president Thokozani Khupe, Moyo, Chamisa and Mwonzora after an executive meeting of their own which the MDC went on to describe as a “bogus” one.
That dramatic development played out as another damning MDC dossier surfaced at the weekend claiming that a group of Rhodies, comprising mainly disillusioned former commercial farmers, was heavily involved in the alleged multi-pronged plot to destroy Tsvangirai and effect illegal leadership change in the MDC.