Why Tsvangirai snubbed Mahlangu burial

BULAWAYO – Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai has come under fire for snubbing the funeral of Thamsanqa Mahlangu, a former MDC-T coalition government minister who succumbed to cancer on Monday.

Mahlangu was buried at Bulawayo’s Lady Stanley Cemetery on Saturday but not without drama as rival political and family camps within the opposition party clashed over the funeral arrangements.

Below is a statement from MDC-T national spokesman Obert Gutu on why the party leadership, including Morgan Tsvangirai, did not attend the burial of their deputy national organising secretary and Nkulumane MP Thamsanqa Mahlangu.

By Obert Gutu

President Morgan Tsvangirai, the party’s national standing committee and indeed, the entire leadership of the party, would like to express their extreme deep sadness and distress at the very unfortunate events that transpired during the funeral of our late hero and deputy national organising secretary, Hon. Thamsanqa Mahlangu.

We are a political party that respects family values and traditions and as such, the MDC also strives to ensure that peace and harmony prevails in the family unit to enable Zimbabwe to be a stable and prosperous nation.

Apparently, there were some serious misunderstandings and differences amongst members of the late Hon. Mahlangu’s family.

As such, the leadership of the party decided to take a position that would allow members of the deceased’s family to peacefully iron out their differences to enable our late hero, Hon. Mahlangu, to be given the rousing send-off and burial that he no doubt deserved.

Unfortunately, the family differences couldn’t be resolved in time to allow President Tsvangirai and members of his national standing committee to attend both the church service as well as the burial at Lady Stanley cemetery in Bulawayo on Saturday, October 10, 2015.

As a political party, we took a firm position not to take sides with any of the three separate family units that were squabbling over how the funeral of our late hero was supposed to be handled.

The situation on the ground made it virtually impossible for President Morgan Tsvangirai and members of the national standing committee to attend the burial of our late hero at Lady Stanley cemetery.

However, the party hopes and fervently prays that peace and harmony will be promptly restored amongst members of the late Honourable Thamsanqa Mahlangu’s family.

Our late hero was a peace – loving and hard working party cadre who certainly wouldn’t have tolerated family members to squabble over how his funeral should have been handled and conducted.

With the passage of time, the MDC is convinced that the various members of our late hero’s family would be able to peacefully resolve whatever differences that they might have. The late Hon. Mahlangu was a fine young gentleman whose soul deserves to rest in eternal peace.

As a political party that our late hero so wholeheartedly supported and worked for, the MDC will continue to do whatever is within its powers to help members of our late hero’s family restore peace, love and harmony amongst themselves.

Obert Gutu is the national spokesman for the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC-T)