Mwonzora wrested the MDC from Nelson Chamisa, who later
went on to form the Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC) after he was hounded
out of the MDC with the use of the courts.
However, there are fears that the MDC is facing imminent
collapse after the August 23 harmonised elections this year.
MDC founding member
Elias Mudzuri told NewsDay that it was a shame that the opposition
members had failed to save the party.
“It’s a shame that we failed to uphold an institution which
used to be very strong and known worldwide. It’s very painful looking at what
used to a very big name,” he said.
“What Dougie (MDC-T leader Douglas Mwonzora) did is a
shame. Everything that he did was to destroy the party. Whatever he did, he did
that for himself and that is why he ended up fielding himself (as presidential
candidate) and a few others. We have never heard of that (before).”
Mudzuri said Mwonzora should leave the party.
“He (Mwonzora) must resign so that we revive the party. We
should get this party running,” he said.
Former MDC-T chairperson and Speaker of the National
Assembly Lovemore Moyo said the party died with the death of founding leader
Morgan Tsvangirai.
“By the way, that is not my former party (MDC-T). Mine was
just MDC and later on MDC-T for electoral purposes. After the death of the
founding president, Tsvangirai, there were some splinter formations and I can’t
attach myself to any of those. I am not for Mwonzora or Nelson Chamisa. I was
part of the Tsvangirai-led MDC,” he said.
In an interview with NewsDay at the weekend, political
analyst and chairperson of the regional think-tank, Southern African Political
Economy Series Trust, Ibbo Mandaza, concurred that Mwonzora had destroyed the
opposition party.
“Mwonzora believed that he was moving with the movement
that Tsvangirai led. He was wrong. We knew from the beginning that he had
gotten lost.
“What happened, therefore, in essence is that Mwonzora and
his little clique evicted themselves out of the MDC,” Mandaza said.
He added: “CCC is, in fact, the real MDC. It has not died.
What died is the Mwonzora MDC. The movement which was led by Tsvangirai or the
contents of MDC remains the same even if it’s renamed CCC.”
Mandaza said the contents of the old MDC led by Tsvangirai
remained the same in terms of membership, orientation, affiliation and
ideology.
“Even though Chamisa has tried to transform it into a new
movement, it is not. On the other side, Chamisa is also wrong to think that he
is leading a new movement. It’s not.
“It is regrettable that Chamisa changed the name. Some of
us advised him to keep that brand MDC because we saw that, predictably,
Mwonzora’s campaign was going to end up in disaster. We saw that a long time
ago,” he said.
MDC-T spokesperson Witness Dube, however, blamed the
Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (Zec) for the woes.
“This is no doubt (this is) the lowest that our party has
reached since its formation. While Zec had a big hand in our failure to
register some 87 candidates, the inescapable truth is that everything rises and
falls on leadership.
“The foundations of the MDC are too deep to collapse the
party overnight. We will make a very strong comeback. Our members are
encouraged to vote fellow opposition candidates where we have none to keep the
hope for change alive by all means possible,” Dube said.
The MDC, which was formed in 1999, was the first opposition
party to garner a parliamentary majority against Zanu PF in the 2000
parliamentary election.
In 2008, Tsvangirai defeated the late former President
Robert Mugabe without the acceptable margin to form a government, leading to a
violent run-off that the MDC boycotted, leading to the formation of a coalition
government. Newsday
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