Khupe in storm over cadre’s suspension

via Khupe in storm over cadre’s suspension 27/10/2014

THE MDC-T Veterans Activists Association (VAA) has accused the party’s vice-president, Thokozani Khupe, of dividing the opposition party in Bulawayo by purging tried and tested cadres and replacing them with her allies.

The VAA members were particularly incensed by the suspension of one of the association’s long-serving members, Senator Matson Hlalo.

Hlalo was suspended from the party two weeks ago after he successfully challenged in the High Court the election of deputy mayor Gift Banda as the MDC-T Bulawayo provincial chairman.

The rally exposed the deep divisions within the MDC-T party in Bulawayo, six months after senior party figures led by secretary general, Tendai Biti, walked out to form a party of their own.

“Our vice-president Thokozani Khupe and the party’s deputy national organising secretary, Abednico Bhebhe, have caused enormous chaos here in Bulawayo by their tribalistic and divisive tendencies,” said Isaac Mpofu, the VAA’s Bulawayo provincial chairman.

“They are busy trying to bring their own people outside the party’s structures while side-lining and circumventing genuine party cadres in lower structures.”

Mpofu, who was accompanied by Khumbulani Sibanda, the VAA’s national organising secretary, and Jenrode Chibondo, the association’s deputy national treasurer during the interview, said disgruntled VAA members held a meeting with party leader Morgan Tsvangirai last Wednesday in Bulawayo to demand that he deals with the matter.

“Last week we requested a meeting with Tsvangirai who is also our patron after realising that the situation is getting out of hand following the suspension of Hlalo whom we have been with in the trenches for a long time.

“The meeting was a no-holds-barred one. After hearing our side of the story, the president promised to come down to Bulawayo after the congress and fix once and for all the problems bedevilling the party in the province,” said Sibanda.

Sibanda said Tsvangirai also promised to set up an independent team to investigate the allegations of tribalism within the party.

In an interview with a local daily soon after winning the controversial election which has since been nullified by the High Court, Banda who is believed to be Khupe’s ally, admitted that ethnicity is the root cause of the problems in the party.

“It’s important to note that most of the fights that were there in the party were tribally motivated to an extent that people were aligning themselves in factions along tribal lines,” he said.