By Staff Reporter
HARARE – A survey report conducted by the Zimbabwe Democracy Institute (ZDI) has concluded that opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai still retains 81 percent of the support from MDC members even after the party split last year.
In the report titled “Political Parties split in Zimbabwe: The case of Movement for Democratic Change (MDC-T)” the ZDI said 87 percent of supporters felt Tsvangirai was leading the stronger faction while 13 percent felt the MDC Renewal Team led by Tendai Biti was the stronger faction of the two.
Although 66 percent of the MDC supporters polled in Harare Province felt the split had weakened the party, 81 percent of those polled back Tsvangirai and his party over the leadership that broke away last year in April.
“A majority think the split was not necessary (54%) against 46% who really feel that it was long overdue. 61% strongly feel the split could have been avoided.
“Close to six in ten of the respondents (59%) are of the opinion that the split does not affect loyalty and party affiliation but a significant 41% think this is a pointer to an all is not well scenario with regards to affiliation and loyalty.”
According to the ZDI survey which sampled 150 respondents in the stronghold of Harare “the recruitment drive for new ‘converts’ is going to be a mammoth task. The study revealed varying degrees of impact on recruitment drive, 31% think the split is not affecting whereas 69% think it is, either to a lesser, larger extent or is fairly affecting.”
Although those who broke away cited Tsvangirai’s alleged “undemocratic tendencies” the majority (43%) cited greed amongst the political elite as the reason for the split not disagreements at party grassroots level.
“There are many reasons behind the MDC-T split and rating each variable as a fraction of a 100, a plurality of the respondents mentioned greed (43%) as the major reason when compared to lack of adherence to the party constitution (13%), successive failure to win presidency (12%), weak leadership (9%), contradictory party members’ interests (12%), class differences (14%) and lack of intra-party democracy (15%),” the report added.
Last year was the second time the MDC split. In 2005, a fallout between Tsvangirai and another Secretary General in Welshman Ncube caused the party to split in half. Despite losing a vote in the national council on whether to participate in senate elections Tsvangirai proceeded to veto the issue and block the party’s participation.
In subsequent weeks and months Ncube’s faction began to suffer mass defections and over time Tsvangirai appeared to have won the political battle for domination. The split still came at a cost as some analysts believe a united MDC would have won the 2008 elections by enough of a majority to have avoided the presidential run-off.
To access the full report: Full Text: ZDI survey report on the MDC split
