Tendai Biti’s party on shaky ground

By Andrew Kunambura

The Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) Renewal Team has gotten off to a shaky start amid revelations that the political outfit is struggling to lure donors while at the same time suffering an undefined leadership which might force it to settle for someone outside its rank and file to take the party through the teething stage.

Indications are that the MDC-Team, as the Tendai Biti camp has rebranded the breakaway faction, has plunged into a financial crisis after failing to secure donor funding and are counting on members of the party who are rich to step to the begging bowl.

Biti, the renewal team lynchpin, was a longtime MDC-T secretary general before his expulsion from the party, following the ouster earlier of former deputy treasurer-general, Elton Mangoma, after they fell out with party president, Morgan Tsvangirai, when they called for leadership change in the country’s biggest opposition party earlier this year.

A split became inevitable as others favouring the status quo stuck with Tsvangirai whom the Biti group wanted to step down before the elective congress.

According to inside sources, it has become apparent that the MDC Team faces a bleak future with indications that they could not convince donors to ditch Tsvangirai in their favour. An MDC-T official disclosed that several MDC Team members approached Tsvangirai three weeks ago, pleading to be re-admitted into the fold but the former Prime Minister turned them down.

“They had very big ambitions when they started this project which was pinned on the background that Jacob Mafume, the renewal team spokesman, had been with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition previously and had established a vast network with close links to the donor community,” said the source.

“So you can see that they had hoped to harness that donor community to their fold but that has not worked and all the people who had joined the team hoping to make money are disgruntled.”

The donors, said the sources, have already started the process of re-engaging Tsvangirai and successive meetings were being held as the party tries to raise funds for its elective congress set for October this year. A Financial Gazette source at Harvest House, the MDC-T’s headquarters in Harare, revealed on Tuesday that acting treasurer-general, Tapiwa Mashakada was currently on a whirlwind tour of Europe, holding meetings with the donors.

“It is true that donors have realised that hope lies with Tsvangirai and the party leaders are having negotiations to re-engage with him. As we speak, the acting treasurer-general is in Spain holding crucial meetings,” said the source.

“They (renewal team) must have been chiefly motivated by the demands for major reforms by financiers who left the party hamstrung by funding shortfalls after they withheld their purses asking for a change of leadership when they revolted against Tsvangirai but it looks like things did not work out as they had hoped,” the source said.

The renewal team seems to have resigned to the fact that donors are not forthcoming with Mafume saying in an interview with this paper on Tuesday that the party was not interested in donors anymore but would be funded by its members. “Our party is composed of good lawyers who understand that it is illegal to seek foreign funding. We therefore are not seeking any donors. We will get our funding from our members,” said Mafume.

“Not at any time will we break the law by seeking foreign funding. The members will keep financing the party until such a time when state funds are available,” he added.

A leadership crisis is also looming in the renewal team with Biti and Mangoma reportedly at loggerheads on who should be at the helm of the faction. This, sources said, partially explains why they had to settle for a moderator in Samuel Sipepa Nkomo who was appointed the group’s interim chairman at the famous Mandel Meeting in April as confusion is also reigning supreme over the future of Sekai Holland who had been rumoured to be their interim leader. Holland, who is chairperson of the MDC-T Guardian Council and has strong links to the donor community, has since distanced herself from the position and has never been to any renewal team event.

Sources said although Biti is seen as the actual leader of the group, there is growing concern about his leadership qualities given his penchant for using obscene language and his temperamental attitude. A renewal team insider said: “A considerable number of us do not believe in Biti being the leader.

Some think he should be a chairman or something like that but not the leader of the party. I think it has dawned on many that Biti is not the kind of person who can be relied on to lead the group but he is being kept on the forefront simply because of the hope that he can use his experience in the party as well as in government to at least convince donors to come on board,” he said.

“He is such a temperamental man who holds grudges that never end and is fond of employing the foul mouth very often,” the source added.

While Mangoma was at the outset the public face of the anti-Tsvangirai uprising in the MDC-T, the notion was that he was a surrogate for Biti who was calling the shots from behind the scenes. Mangoma is himself keen to take over the reins. Sources said Mangoma has recently been contriving methods to increase his stock and raise his profile as he prepares to land the top position in the camp in the event that they fail to settle the impasse with Biti.

Mangoma has created a Facebook page as he targets social media users for support and sympathy. The Facebook page, titled Elton Mangoma for Renewal, was created on June 23 and has a stellar academic and work profile of the politician.

Sources said it is administered by ‘a clique of Mangoma’s loyalists’ with him contributing sporadic updates. Downstream of the political outfit, key figures such as Solomon Madzore and Promise Mkwananzi reportedly do not see eye to eye with the latter reportedly falling out of favour as he is suspected to be spying for Tsvangirai.

Other reportedly disgruntled members of the renewal team are Last Tamai Maengahama, Pishai Muchauraya and others who have not been given definite roles in the camp but have been championing its cause relentlessly. It is also understood that the members have reached a standoff over how they should take the political outfit forward after they failed to amass considerable grassroots support.

“I think they have now realised that they do not command popular support at the grassroots and they now cannot map a collective way forward. The next few months will be very interesting in the renewal camp,” a source said.

Mafume, however, tried to downplay the gravity of the situation saying they have no need of a ‘messianic kind of leader.’ “It is a political myth that a political party needs a messianic kind of leader. A political party is a team which has various leaders in different positions that act substantive roles, so it is not necessary for a party to have a president as its leader,” Mafume said. Financial Gazette