Tendai Biti, who had taken over as secretary-general of the MDC-T when the party split, and was Finance Minister in the inclusive government challenged Tsvangrai to step down after the election defeat saying the party needed a leadership renewal. Biti and his lieutenants also said Tsvangirai had served more than two terms so he should step down.
Tsvangirai refused to step down and the party split with Biti forming the People’s Democratic Party. This time, however, he walked away with fewer seats, 17.
Tsvangirai held a congress in 2014 where Douglas Mwonzora beat Nelson Chamisa to become party secretary-general.
Chamisa, however, outsmarted both Mwoznora and Thokozani Khupe who was elected party deputy president at the congress, to become party leader when Tsvangirai died. Mwonzora was kicked out at the 2019 congress but extracted his revenge when the Supreme Court ruled that Chamisa’s takeover of the leadership of the party was illegal. The party had to revert to the 2014 congress leadership which put Mwonzora back as secretary general with Khupe as acting president pending the holding of a congress.
Both Khupe and Mwonzora started pruning Chamisa’s power base by recalling MPs who had been elected on the MDC-Alliance ticket but had been members of the MDC-T.
Mwonzora delivered the final blow when he renamed his party the MDC-Alliance forcing Chamisa to come up with a new name, Citizens Coalition for Change, though some dubbed it Chamisa Chete Chete.
Chamisa said this was a new political party with no links to the MDC. It had no constitution, no leadership apart from Chamisa himself and no structures.
It is this anomaly that Tshabangi is exploiting.
Tshabangu says he wants to bring order to the party. Mwonzora agrees with him.
“What Tshabangu is saying there is that let’s go back to corporate governance, let’s go back to a party with structures, with officials and not a party which is one man band, that is the logic not that there is something legal about it,” Mwonzora told Bulawayo publication Cite.
So far, Tshabangu has been winning and he seems to have the support of some senior CCC members who were sidelined by Chamisa.
What is interesting is that all opposition secretary-generals -Ncube, Biti, and Mwonzora- are lawyers. Chamisa is a lawyer too and so is President Emmerson Mnangagwa.
The Insider has not been able to establish whether Tshabangu is a lawyer or not. But he is related to Ncube, who is not just a lawyer but was a lecturer/professor at the University of Zimbabwe. He taught most people that are now senior lawyers and politicians today.
For now, Tshabangu seems to be methodically plucking Chamisa one feather at a time, but this is going to be a tall order because like Tsvangirai, Chamisa is more popular than the party..
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