Opposition MDC Alliance president Nelson Chamisa is reluctant to form a new political party saying it would be a betrayal to Morgan Tsvangirai, the MDC-T leader who succumbed to cancer in February 2018, The Anchor has established.
Calls for Chamisa to form his own political outfit have been growing since fellow vice president under Tsvangirai, Thokozani Khupe, wrestled the party’s properties after a High Court order ruled that the party reverts to its 2014 structures with the latter as interim president.
The High Court case was brought before the courts by a member who argued that Chamisa had unlawfully assumed the party’s presidency while Khupe, last week, announced that her formation would be participating the forthcoming by-elections as MDC Alliance.
Sources within the Chamisa-led MDC-A party revealed that though supporters wanted him to dumb the MDC name and form a new political party, the youthful politician was not eager to make such a move.
“He feels he will be betraying Morgan Tsvangirai by forming a new political party. He wants to take the Khupe-led faction and Zanu-PF head on. Chamisa has been considering what the supporters are saying but last week he vowed not to form a new party,” the sources said.
They said Chamisa and his advisors believe their rivals will run out of ideas.
“Chamisa and his team are just waiting for the right time to strike because they have crafted their own responses to Mwonzora’s games and they also believe the erstwhile secretary-general would soon run out of ideas,” the sources said.
In an interview, Chamisa’s spokesperson Nkululeko Sibanda accused Zanu-PF of using Khupe to destroy the MDC Alliance before the 2023 harmonised elections with a view of forming a quasi-one-party state in Zimbabwe.
“President Chamisa has noted very clearly that what is happening now is akin to what Mnangagwa has done before which is to try and create a de-facto one party state in Zimbabwe.
“This is why president Chamisa accepted the decision from the executive (committee) yesterday which says that the party will continue with its name and the party is going to resist Zanu-PF trying to give it an identity and just today the president declared that the game was on.
“If they are playing a game then honestly we are going to take them seriously and we will face them off. They will see a program that is being rolled out by the president.”
Political observers have been calling for Chamisa to ditch the “toxic” MDC brand and form his own political party so that he takes on Zanu-PF without distractions.
