MDC infighting: The quotable quotes
As the high stakes political drama in the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) unfolds, Nehanda Radio gives you a selection of some of the quotable quotes from the prominent protagonists involved in the tussle.
MDC president Morgan Tsvangirai
“Handidzingwi netsamba. Ndinodzingwa necongress (I cannot be suspended by letters but by the MDC congress).”
Bulawayo East MDC-T MP, Thabitha Khumalo
“We are not here discussing individuals who are suffering from meningitis and as MDC Bulawayo province, we are not doctors, we are cadres that are fighting to free Zimbabwean people from slavery.
When we formed this party in 1999, our goal was to remove the dictator which is Zanu PF. As MDC Bulawayo, we have no time to worry about people who forget to jump off at a bus stop there were supposed to.
“We are not here to fight each other, but to take the Zimbabwean family to Canaan. If the kitchen is too hot get out.”
Nelson Chamisa, MDC-T National Organising Secretary
“This is utter nonsense. They have actually formed a party not that they have suspended us. How can one claim to be divorcing a partner whom he or she had already been divorced from many years ago? It’s a nullity to us and it means nothing.
MDC-T Harare Province spokesman Obert Gutu
“He (Tendai Biti) needs emergency treatment. This is definitely not the man I have known for the past 28 years or so. I feel pity for him. Can someone out there please help this guy urgently? He is losing it; completely.”
Tendai Biti, Secretary General MDC-T
“The party itself is now clearly divided between the faction of fascists led by the suspended Morgan Tsvangirai and the renewal democratic team that met at Mandel Training Center of the 26th of April 2014. Effectively, there are now two national councils and that if none of these has more authority than the other one, if anything, the one with the secretary general is the superior.”
Nelson Chamisa, MDC-T National Organising Secretary
“Biti has always wanted to be the party President, and we all knew that. It is only after today that he has divulged his intensions.”
Kennedy Kaitano, commentator
“It should be noted that all the confusion that is taking place is of Biti’s own making. He had been very evasive. He attends a Council meeting which suspends Mangoma, does not speak his concerns in the meeting, but runs to his offices after the meeting to call a press conference to say that proper voting procedures had not been followed, hence Mangoma’s suspension was a nullity. Another Council meeting is called, and when the voting is about to be taken to expel Mangoma, he excuses himself saying he has a court case to attend – was that true? That Biti has a hidden agenda is very obvious, and time will tell what exactly he is up to. Those who are being misled by this spineless, deceptive character must start to analyse his contradictions.”
Nelson Chamisa, MDC-T National Organising Secretary
“Do donors vote? We are worried with Zimbabweans who are the voters. Donors do not vote. We are a party which has a mandate of the people of Zimbabwe and that is our constituency.”
MDC president Morgan Tsvangirai
“I told Mangoma when he handed me the letter that uchafuratira museve nekutemba mhepo. Akandishura murume uya,” (This will backfire, he surprised me), said Tsvangirai.
MDC president Morgan Tsvangirai
“Why is Zanu-PF afraid that it will invest so much in our party and to divide our party? You know zvandakataura zviya kuti moyo chena wei mhou kumwisa mhuru isiri yayo?
This is what is coming to pass. I know in 2005 (Professor) Welshman (Ncube) was a project and now it’s Tendai and Mangoma it has nothing to do with the people. The support and the solid support we enjoy in this country is unquestionable.”
Zanu PF spokesman Rugare Gumbo
“Our position as Zanu-PF has been abundantly made clear. The problems of incapacity to keep the party together in the MDC have nothing to do with us. The people in the opposition party have different ideological positions, the young individuals have different interests – the intellectuals have different interests – so it is a delicate party with a failed leadership.”
Dorcas Sibanda, MDC-T acting Bulawayo party provincial chairperson
“We are not going to recognise the decision which was made there simply because Bulawayo was not represented. Those who constitute the council from this city were not there.
“And for your own information, when the national council sits, it is the president and the national chairman who call for it (meeting). As Bulawayo, the stronghold of the party, we want to state categorically that we are fully behind Tsvangirai and Khupe, until the national congress decides.
“We are not going to lose focus. This is a Zanu PF cooked pot, Zanu PF has realised that they have failed to deliver. They failed to deliver in their 100 days target now they want to use MDC as the scapegoat and divert attention on their failures.”
MDC president Morgan Tsvangirai
“Kana ndatadza saTsvangirai taura kuti watadza pakati pakati, hatiendei mberi nezvakati zvakati, totauriranaka. Ko zvekuhwandirana zvinei? Tinoda kubvumirana, toenda kucongress woti ndinonzi Mangoma ndoda ku-challenger president. Vanhu voti zvakanaka, gwede gwede. Haikona kuita zvinhu zvechi-crook uchitaura nyaya yedemocracy. Ndiyo democracy yacho here yekuita mameetings muri vaviri?” Tsvangirai said.
(If I have done wrong as Tsvangirai, you should say this is where you erred. Let’s move forward like this, not to do this clandestinely. We must agree and then we go to congress.
Then you can say I am (Elton) Mangoma and I want to challenge Tsvangirai. Then people say can you square off. Not to raise flimsy democracy arguments. Is that democracy, convening a meeting with two people, holding meetings with a rented crowd?)”.
MDC (Ncube) spokesman Nhlanhla Dube
“The MDC wishes to unequivocally place it on record once and for all that we have consciously refrained from commenting on the internal fights within the MDC-T and as such we are astounded by remarks attributed to that party’s spokesperson Douglas Mwonzora where he includes Prof. Welshman Ncube among the people he blames for his party’s squabbles.
“It is our hope that sooner, rather than later the culture of taking responsibility for the things we do and situations we find ourselves in as political parties will sit well with our compatriots within the MDC-T and that they will collectively see the folly of the ostrich approach to problems. Neither Professor Ncube nor the MDC caused the violent beatings meted out on Elton Mangoma, Promise Mkwananzi and the harassment of Tendai Biti, Solomon Madzore and others,” he said.
Zanu PF spokesman Rugare Gumbo
“They do not have the experience and capacity to hold the party together particularly in such a complicated set up. The opposition party MDC is sponsored by foreigners and they are the ones engineering the problems that are within that party. They are saying Morgan Tsvangirai has failed to deliver and bring political or regime change in Zimbabwe, which is what brought them together, so they are now saying Morgan Tsvangirai must go.”
MDC president Morgan Tsvangirai
“I want to tell you why this is happening. In 2005, when Welshman Ncube (leader of the smaller MDC formation), and (Thabo) Mbeki (former South African President) said the MDC cannot go to the negotiations this strong, it should be the junior partner. Now this has come back again. Zanu PF knows that they cannot move this country (forward) without the MDC, so let us divide the MDC so that when we go to the negotiations it will be Biti, Welsh and Tsvangirai so that these other two will keep backing Zanu PF.
“If you want change, why are you moving from the majority? Isn’t it that you want change? Why forming a splinter (party)? It means you want Zanu PF to continue in power. Zvino hero dambudziko MDC hanzi kususpender Tsvangirai? Vanoshura vakomana vaya handichada kutaura nezvekuparty because arasika arasika,” said Tsvangirai, pouring scorn on efforts to remove him “illegally”.
Jacob Mafume, (Mangoma’s lawyer)
“Yesterday’s (Tuesday’s) national council meeting held by Mr Morgan Tsvangirai and his accomplices was an illegal gathering presided over by suspended people. Tsvangirai is on public trial. Is he a leader that can be trusted with power and responsibility? Can he stand in the shadows, not footsteps of Nelson Mandela, Kwame Nkrumah, Quet Masire, Joachim Chissano, Patrice Lumumba and Thabo Mbeki? The answer is no. His childish antics of labelling anyone who disagrees with him as Zanu-PF will not find any takers among serious Zimbabweans.”
MDC president Morgan Tsvangirai
“What can Biti do? A person who cannot organise five people ndotya munhu akadaro naMangoma? (Mangoma and Biti don’t worry me). We saw that with Welsh, the script is the same, (although) the actors are different. They will not go anywhere truly, with the way those people sold out, betraying the people of Zimbabwe.”
Douglas Mwonzora, MDC-T national spokesman
“The national council of the MDC cannot be made up of people from other political parties such as Welshman Ncube. This was clearly the work of State security agents, Zanu PF, (President) Robert Mugabe, Welshman Ncube and a few malcontents in our ranks who are trying to destroy the MDC.”
“The claim that 138 national council members attended the meeting is laughable because, for one to be a member of the council, they should first be a legal member of the MDC and many of those who attended the meeting are not members of the party.
“Our reading is that this is the work of people who are scared to challenge the party president at congress because they know they cannot win. The secretary general (Tendai Biti) knows he cannot defeat Tsvangirai at congress.”
MDC-T National Executive member Chalton Hwende
“Of all these people you see here only Tendai Biti was elected directly by our congress delegates in 2011. (Solomon) Madzore was seconded by the Youth Assembly, (Samuel) Sipepa Nkomo tried to stand for the Deputy SG post but was rejected by the same congress only managing a paltry 373 votes.
“The rest were serving in the National Executive at the pleasure of the President who is allowed to appoint 10 additional members in the National Executive. How they now claim to have powers to substitute our Congress ndazvishaya ndibatsireiwo.”
Elton Mangoma, expelled Deputy Treasurer General
“There are some of our colleagues who don’t understand what collective leadership means, what participative democracy means. Every time people want to see a strong man emerge, we want to change the trajectory of this country, we want to say everyone who wants to work for the betterment of this country here you are. It’s not an exclusive club it’s open to everyone.”
“How do you freeze accounts of a party? I am one of perhaps six signatories, so am I that powerful that I can just tell them that you do this, you do that and everybody listens. It just tells you about people who don’t know what they are talking about. I think that there’s no account that has been frozen for the record, and it is not possible for one person to freeze an account where there are many signatories including the president himself.”
MDC-T Harare Province spokesman Obert Gutu
“In terms of the MDC-T constitution, one Sipepa Nkomo has absolutely no locus standi (legal standing) to chair a national council meeting. A meeting of the national council is chaired by the national chairman or in his absence, the deputy national chairman.
“One Sipepa Nkomo is a member of the Guardians Council. He is neither the national chairman nor the deputy national chairman. Less than twenty people who attended the bogus national council meeting at Mandel training centre in Harare are bona fide and lawful members of the MDC-T national council.
‘I am a member of the MDC-T national council but I was neither invited to nor advised of the afore-mentioned bogus national council meeting. Legally, therefore, the purported national council meeting that was held on April 26, 2014 is bogus. It is null and void. It is a fundamental principle of law that no valid and binding resolution can arise from a meeting that is null and void.”
