Morgan Tsvangirai has been ditched by the late Ndabaningi Sithole’s ZANU Ndonga party.
The party’s president Wilson Khumbula has announced he is dissolving it and joining Robert Mugabe’s ZANU PF. Before last week, Tsvangirai had enjoyed support and allegiance from the party.
But a war of words has erupted in ZANU Ndonga where some long-standing party cadres are disputing Wilson Khumbula’s latest move saying his decision to join ZANU-PF was personal.A fortnight ago Khumbula announced that the party was dissolving as the leadership had forged an alliance with ZANU-PF in the wake of what he called behind-the- scenes talks between the two parties.
He immediately urged his members to join the “various ZANU-PF structures.”
But despite his claims, Denford Musiyarira has since assumed leadership of ZANU Ndonga.
Musiyarira told the Financial Gazette recently that the party was still in existence and that those who have migrated to ZANU-PF had done so in their personal capacities.
ZANU Ndonga was founded by the late veteran nationalist, Ndabaningi Sithole, after he broke away from ZANU-PF.
Sithole died in 2000.
The party has consistently won the Chipinge seat, which happened to fall in Sithole’s home area, until 2005. Khumbula, who was Sithole’s deputy, took over the party after the death of his predecessor but fared dismally in the 2002 presidential elections before the party went on to lose its parliamentary seat in the 2005 elections.
Sharp divisions followed afterwards as some leaders started questioning his leadership, resulting in two factions emerging, led by Khumbula and Gondai Vhutuza.
Another splinter group later sprang up fronted by former chairperson of the party, Reketayi Semwayo, who forged an alliance with Morgan Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change in a bid to win the Chipinge Central National Assembly seat in 2013, but lost. Both Vhutuza and Semwayo have since stepped aside from the leadership of the party, allowing former chairperson, Musiyarira, to take over as president.
This week, Musiyarira said the party has not been dissolved as Khumbula claimed.
“I want to make it very clear that ZANU Ndonga is still there as a political party and I am now its president,” he said. “I have actually just walked out of a strategic party meeting. It’s not a surprise to us that Khumbula has joined ZANU-PF. He has always been a ZANU-PF person. As far as we are concerned, it is only Khumbula who has joined ZANU-PF in his own personal capacity and he should stop pretending that he is representing us. Let everyone know that ZANU Ndonga is still alive and very active. We urge our members and supporters to therefore refuse to be swayed,” Musiyarira said. – Fingaz/Additional Reporting