THE MDC Alliance led by Advocate Nelson Chamisa last night went into overdrive and attacked Hatfield legislator Tapiwa Mashakada, labelling him a Zanu-PF agent who was once a ruling party’s youth league branch chairman at the University of Zimbabwe (UZ) in the 1990s.
The fallout came after Mashakada, in a video interview Sunday afternoon, said while it was strategic to let Chamisa take over by any means following the death of Morgan Tsvangirai in February 2018, the opposite party made a “stupid” mistake by not going for an extraordinary congress to cure the error.
Immediately after the Mashakada online interview with Sly Media TV, MDC Alliance officials started revealing details painting the Hatfield legislator as an old guard who was bitterbyhat younger leaders were coming up the ranks of the party. This was after Mashakada had said Chamisa was now surrounded by a “cabal” of former student leaders who were turning him into a dictator.
MDC Alliance officials, in particular Pedzisayi Ruhanya, labelled Mashakada as having been Zanu-PF right from the beginning. Mashakada is one of the founder members of the MDC led by Tsvangirai.
Wikileaks revelations by former MDC Treasurer, the late Roy Bennett, were also dug up by angry MDC officials, the most trending one being a 2007 interview between Bennett and US Embassy in South Africa officials.
“In a November 2 (2007) meeting with PolOff at the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) offices in Johannesburg, MDC Treasurer Roy Bennett (strictly protect) said he was “over the moon” with MDC President Morgan Tsvangirai’s leadership in recent weeks,” one of the cables reads.
“After years of inaction, Tsvangirai was finally “cleaning house.” Tsvangirai made the right decision in replacing Lucia Matibenga as head of the MDC Women’s Assembly Congress, Bennett said, hinting strongly that Matibenga was on the payroll of ZANU-PF.
“Bennett alleged that current MDC National Organizing Secretary Elias Mudzuri and Deputy Secretary General Tapiwa Mashakada were also “compromised” and would soon be replaced. 3. (C) Bennett also reported that the MDC is finally putting systems in place to manage people and resources properly. He credited George Sibetshiwe, who is serving as Tsvangirai’s de facto chief of staff, for organizing Harvest House and allowing Tsvangirai to focus on his key tasks. (NOTE: Sibetshiwe formerly worked for Bennett at the MDC South Africa office. END NOTE.)
“Bennett has also put a new security team around Tsvangirai, which is trained and “professional.” 4. (C) The recent press attacks on Tsvangirai claiming that he is dictatorial and disorganized are largely coming from the Trevor Ncube-owned newspapers The Standard and The Independent, Bennett said. Ncube is even using the South African weekly, the Mail & Guardian, which he owns to publish “lies” about Tsvangirai and the MDC.
“Bennett claimed that Ncube has a personal vendetta against Tsvangirai, and is working with former GOZ Information Minister Jonathan Moyo in his campaign.”