A national executive
committee meeting set for Friday was reportedly abandoned after members
boycotted in anger over attempts to expel deputy president Elias Mudzuri.
Sources said the meeting was then moved to Saturday where
it was held concurrently with the national council.
“The agenda was to fire Mudzuri, but this failed because
members of the national executive stayed away. In fact, at the time the meeting
was supposed to start only one member outside the standing committee, Gilbert
Shoko from Bulawayo, was there,” an insider told NewsDay.
“The national council itself had problems with numbers,
because we had to rely on apologies to get a quorum. Still, the open hostility
towards the push for Mudzuri’s ouster was so real that the issue was never
brought for a vote in the national council.”
While Mudzuri seems to have survived the chop, at least for
now, Chamisa’s supporters reportedly ring-fenced the 40-year-old leader against
possible challenge at the party’s forthcoming congress scheduled for next year.
The MDC’s United Kingdom chairperson, Tonderai Samanyanga, reportedly
circulated a WhatsApp message criticising Chamisa, drawing the ire of the party
leader’s acolytes.
“The UK and United States provinces were subsequently
dissolved and for the former, it is because its chairman Samanyanga criticised
‘chef’ (Chamisa). The party also moved to adopt a social media policy on
Saturday to curtail the incessant onslaught on the president ahead of congress.
It’s a way of stemming the tide, as it were,” said the source.
Party spokesperson Jacob Mafume, however, denied Mudzuri’s
issue was ever on the agenda.
“Yes, we moved the national executive meeting to Saturday
and held it at the same time as the national council, but not because of
numbers. The standing committee meeting held on Friday took too long, and we
wanted to allow people to attend the presidential Christmas dinner,” Mafume
told NewsDay.
He added: “The Mudzuri issue is a footnote in the greater
scheme of things. Zimbabweans are struggling to make ends meet. They don’t know
what tomorrow may bring, and we cannot, as a party that has people at heart, be
transfixed with one person.
“The issue about vice-president Mudzuri is between him and
his principal, the president. It is the president who is dealing with it, and
he has told the party that he needs to give the vice-president time to explain
himself.” Newsday
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