HARARE - The blatant contempt of court by expelled MDC secretary-general Tendai Biti’s rebels who went ahead with a purported disciplinary hearing against opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai on Friday, despite a High Court order stopping the charade, not only exposes the so-called renewal team for the hypocrites they are, it also smacks of embarrassing kindergarten politics.
The High Court ruled explicitly that Tsvangirai could not be hauled before the purported hearing, with Justice Happious Zhou ordering the rebels not to implement any of the resolutions they took at their disputed Mandel “national council meeting”, which they have been trying to pass as binding MDC decisions, and which sought to initially suspend and then expel Tsvangirai.
“Respondent (Biti) and any other person claiming or acting through their instructions be and are hereby interdicted from proceeding with any disciplinary proceedings against the applicant and other office bearers of the applicant on 27 June pursuant to the respondent of the meeting held at Mandel Training Centre,” the learned judge said.
That Biti and the rebels still went ahead with their kangaroo court, and “expelled”
Tsvangirai and party national chairman Lovemore Moyo, despite this explicit High Court ruling, is most revealing about their contempt for democracy generally, as well as for the courts in particular.
It also shows them up for the unashamed hypocrites they are, seeing that the rebels would like to be seen as champions of the rule of law and democracy; and that their still-to-be-named new political formation was spawned out of allegations that there was no democracy within the MDC.
Clearly, therefore, the purported “expulsion” of Tsvangirai and Moyo by the kangaroo court, allegedly presided over by lawyers Gift Nyandoro, Tafadzwa Mugabe and Edwin Hamunakwadi, is null and void, as no-one under the sun has powers that supersede court orders.
While we are at it, it boggles the mind that any reputable lawyers would want to enmesh themselves in this kind of charade, particularly knowing fully well that the courts were mediating the case.
Zimbabweans await with bated breath to see how the courts and the justice system will react to this blatant and conscious contempt of court by all concerned, as it portends a steep decline into Banana Republic politics if it is not nipped in the bud.
But beyond the dire implications of the rebels breaching both the letter and spirit of the law in this matter, their actions of the past few months indicate very strongly that the so-called renewal team is fast running out of steam, ideas and political oxygen.
As we have pointed out before, and with party leader Morgan Tsvangirai ratcheting up the pressure on the rebels via his massive and successful rallies around the country, and he clearly has the numbers on his side, the renewal team is now well and truly up the creek — without a paddle to row back to terra firma!
This is why all they can do to try and advance their stillbirth cause is launch unbecoming personal attacks on Tsvangirai — never mind their own well-documented indiscretions — and mount kangaroo courts like the one voided by the High Court.
This is why very few Zimbabweans will mourn the certain demise of the renewal putsch, because their petty fight benefits no-one, and certainly doesn’t help to solve Zimbabwe’s deepening socio-economic problems.
And while the rebels’ cowboy, shoot-from-the-hip style of politics can sometimes offer comic relief during these economically challenging times — it is nevertheless infantile and does not win the hearts and minds of sober Zimbabweans.