via Renewal Team in Gweru crunch meeting – New Zimbabwe 11/06/2015
THE MDC Renewal Team leadership will Friday hold a crunch meeting in Gweru to discuss the future of the troubled party.
The party recently suffered a massive setback when one of its founding members, Elton Mangoma, quit after he was suspended over accusations that he had an affair with a junior member’s wife.
Mangoma has since formed his own party, Renewal Democrats of Zimbabwe.
The Renewal Team was also left in shambles after its interim leader, Sekai Holland, quit last month, amid infighting reports.
National chairperson, Samuel Sipepa Nkomo, told journalists in Bulawayo that the party’s management committee and national council would meet in Gweru to strategise on the way forward for the opposition group.
“We are planning a national convention of the Renewal Team, perhaps in the second week of July or the third week of July,” said Nkomo.
“As you can see, my colleague Edwin Ndlovu (Bulawayo provincial spokesperson) has been struggling whether to call me acting president or whatever.
“I must say that we do not have an acting president in the Renewal Team, we only have a chairman.”
He said the July national convention would choose the party’s substantive national leadership.
“On Friday, we are meeting the national council for them to authorise the proposed meeting in July where the substantive leadership is going to be elected by the convention.
“We will also deal with a few issues within the renewal family,” said Nkomo.
He said between now and the national convention, district structures would be put in order.
Nkomo also told journalists that they have held direct talks to individuals linked to former vice president Joice Miujuru with a view to forming a coalition.
He said they had approached some former Zanu PF stalwarts who were thrown out of the party together with Mujuru after being accused of masterminding a plot to overthrow President Robert Mugabe.
“As Renewal Team and as individuals, we have engaged people from the Mujuru side. I have talked to some and my colleagues have talked to some and they have asked us to talk on individual basis and we have continued to do that.
“We have not talked to Mai Mujuru herself but, even when we were talking with these other colleagues from the Mujuru side, we kept on telling them that it was important that they have some kind of name by which we can identify them,” said Nkomo.
Nkomo said once the Mujuru camp formally announce their political party the Renewal Team would formally engage with them.
COMMENTS