via Tsvangirai incredibly foolish, says Biti – New Zimbabwe 09/03/2015
FORMER Finance Minister and MDC-Renewal Team secretary general Tendai Biti has declared that his “purported recall” from Parliament by the rival faction led by ex-premier Morgan Tsvangirai will not materialize.
Biti called a press conference in Harare to respond to a new bid his successor as MDC-T secretary general Douglas Mwonzora who wrote to the Speaker of the National Assembly to have legislators aligned to the MDC Renewal group expelled from Parliament.
Mwonzora argued that Biti and his Renewal Team group had left the MDC-T – on whose platform they were elected to Parliament – to form a rival political party called the United Movement for Democractic Change (UMDC).
But Biti said he remained MDC-T secretary general, insisting it was Tsvangirai who had been expelled.
“Our leadership has not changed, I am still the secretary general of the party, Sipepa Nkomo is still the chairperson and Sekai Holland the president,” he said.
“Mwonzora quite rightly tried to stop the Mandel proceedings as well as the tribunal in June last year but never followed things through.
He added: “To us that means they are not challenging the resolutions made at Mandel and those still stand.
“There are judgments that were handed down as required by article 12 of the MDC constitution by an independent.
The rule is that if a tribunal makes a judgment then the only way for those affected was to approach the High Court; and they (Tsvangirai group) tried quite rightly to stop the Mandel proceedings as well as the tribunal from sitting.”
In the fall-out from the MDC-T’s poor showing in the July 31 2013 elections, then deputy treasurer Elton Mangoma torched a storm when he wrote a letter to Tsvangirai demanding that the party leader steps down.
A second letter restated his position but Tsvangirai stayed put before Biti joined the furore in support of Mangoma. They convened a national council meeting at Mandel Training Centre that suspended Tsvangirai and six other top leaders on April 26 last year.
A tribunal of three lawyers which sat in June expelled Tsvangirai and party chairman Lovemore Moyo. In May and November Tsvangirai wrote to parliament seeking to recall Biti and his group but the requests were thrown out.
Biti said he was confident Speaker Jacob Mudenda would arrive at the same decision regarding the latest attempt.
“This is a dispute in which the Speaker has made two determinations and, legally, when a judge has made a ruling on a matter he/she becomes functus officio, he has already made a determination and anyone concerned with the ruling is free to approach the High Court,” said Biti.
“We then get really surprised of the motivation driving our colleagues more so when we realise that they are working with Zanu PF in the mould of the likes of Mandipaka (Oliver Zanu PF MP) and others.”
Biti said Tsvangirai and his group are driven by nothing but malice and would rather “donate the seats to Zanu PF”.
“The issue of malice is further accentuated by the fact that our colleagues have followed our decision that no decent party can participate in election in Zimbabwe until we have fundamental electoral reforms,” he explained.
“So if they remain bound by that decision (and) the net effect of that they are saying it is better for Zanu PF to occupy the same seats occupied by our members now, which I find unbelievably irrational and I am being very polite because there are better adjectives to describe that action.
“These very actions explain why the men and women who met at Mandel last year took those decisions.”
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