MDC Congress countdown: Chamisa out of his depth
Chamisa stood to earn some party members and goodwill from the smaller parties but he allowed conceit, pride and, dare one say, big headedness to get in the way and lost potential increased members from these parties.
THE MDC-Alliance elective congress has been pencilled for May 24 to 26 after many months of wishing it away to buy time on the part of that party’s leader, Nelson Chamisa.
Since seizing the leadership of the party in February last year while his predecessor, the late Morgan Tsvangirai’s body was still lying in a South African funeral parlour, Chamisa has been arguing that since the last elective congress was held in October 2014 the next one should be held in October this year, but other senior members wanted it held last month as he had been at the helm for one year as agreed by the party’s national council on February 14, 2018.
A look at the highlights of his one year as the leader gives an indication as to why he has been pushing for an October congress.
Divided house Following the splitting of the MDC in 2005 over the senatorial election held that year and a further split in 2014 which was occasioned by some party members’ growing impatience to unseat ZANU-PF, the party has never been united.
This was partly because of Tsvangirai’s continued stay as the leader despite losing one election after another including in his home area of Buhera in 2000.
His appointment of Chamisa as the third vice president in 2016 in addition to Thokozani Khupe and Elias Mudzuri, who had been elected by congress two years earlier, worsened the situation which culminated in Chamisa’s seizing leadership.
This further divided the party as Khupe, the then spokesman, Obert Gutu and others left to form what they termed MDC-T.
This is the party that Chamisa inherited from Tsvangirai.
Apart from fresh leadership, the party badly needed a mature and unifying figure to heal the rifts created over the previous 12 years and chart a new course ahead of the elections.
Being a youth who was surrounded by senior party members, Chamisa stood in good stead to avoid Tsvangirai’s mistakes and reunite the party, but he prioritised position instead wisdom.
Yes, Tendai Biti, Welshman Ncube and Job Sikhala returned to the party but it remains as divided as ever.
The trio’s return was motivated more by the need to secure a political home after years in the wilderness and prospects for some meaningful posts in the absence of Tsvangirai whilst positioning themselves to usurp Chamisa at the helm in the future.
Since 1999, the MDC constitution has been readily available including on the party’s website, but the moment Chamisa took over the party’s leadership he has disregarded it and even taking it off the website. Some old timers have the old one but the amended one has become a rarity.
This does not auger well for the leader’s integrity.
Misaligned alliance Despite bequeathing to Chamisa a fragmented party, Tsvangirai seems to have made up for this by literally putting in his hands the leadership of the alliance of opposition parties which Tsvangirai had painstakingly laboured to put together despite failing health.
This positioned Chamisa for the leadership of the alliance, which was named MDC-Alliance, and landing its candidature for the 2018 presidential elections.
Despite this golden opportunity, Chamisa rode roughshod over fellow alliance leaders such as Transform Zimbabwe’s Jacob Ngarivhume and Ncube at some point complained that Chamisa was running the alliance like a personal project.
He further grumbled that Chamisa was spending more time at rallies to the exclusion of resolving issues bedevilling the alliance.
This was worsened by his largely young membership which openly said that the other parties had no meaningful membership numbers and, therefore the then MDC-T should be allocated constituencies in areas that it preferred.
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