THE opposition MDC’s elective congress in Gweru last month
failed to deal with the party’s thorny succession issue, setting the stage for
potentially explosive power struggles in the event that its president Nelson
Chamisa fails to complete his five-year term, party insiders claim.
Insiders said the matter of succession is sensitive and the
thematic committee mandated with constitutional reforms deliberately left out
the issue for fear of being accused of plotting Chamisa’s ouster.
“Currently, the party has three equal vice-presidents, all
three were elected at congress and there is, therefore, not one of them more
superior to the others,” an insider said.
“This leaves the party in a crisis if the president becomes
incapacitated or for whatever reason fails to complete his term of office. The
question that would need to be answered is: Of the three, who will act as
president?”
Chamisa, however, dismissed the allegations, saying the MDC
constitution was amended at congress and will soon be crafted to deal with all
the grey areas.
“The national council will sit on Wednesday and will
finalise all the outstanding matters of congress. We will then avail the
amended constitution of the party which will be comprehensive and will deal
with those matters; it will be clear and concise,” he said.
Law lecturer Valentine Mutatu noted that in the absence of
the amendments, it would be too early to say there is a succession crisis in
the MDC.
“Given that they have three equal deputies to the
president, there is need to have a clear statement on succession by the MDC in
its amended constitution. If they don’t place that, then they
set themselves for a political crisis in terms of their
succession,” Mutatu said.
The opposition party, which also moved to break with the
past by resolving to have one vice-president from 2024 onwards, is currently
balancing a fragile reunification pact with its erstwhile colleagues who quit
during the late leader Morgan Tsvangirai and rejoined the movement in the
run-up to last year’s polls. . It will continue with three vice-presidents to
complete the integration of the MDC Alliance into the MDC. Jameson Timba, who
was behind crafting the MDC Alliance constitution, confirmed that congress was
a platform to ensure that Tendai Biti’s People’s Democratic Party and Welshman
Ncube’s MDC returned to the fold electively.
“We have completed the reunification of the MDC. The
election of Ncube and Biti into the vice-presidency marks the end of the job we
started as the MDC Alliance and takes us forward as the reunited MDC and it’s a
critical stage for us,” Timba said.
The ruling Zanu PF party has had a similar succession
crisis since the era of former President Robert Mugabe, where talk of
succession was considered taboo. Newsday
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