Tsvangirai ignores Khupe's calls to postpone Alliance launch

MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai has ignored calls to postpone the launch of the party's alliance in Bulawayo on Saturday - in a move which is likely to worsen cracks in the labour-backed party - whose provincial leadership wants the event postponed indefinitely.

Saturday's MDC Alliance rally follows the launch of an alliance pact between the party and seven fringe parties in Harare on August 5.

Tsvangirai's deputy, Thokozani Khupe, national chairman Lovemore Moyo and organising secretary Abednego Bhebhe did not attend the launch.

This week, they wrote a letter to Tsvangirai demanding that the launch of the alliance in Bulawayo be postponed.

"We are definitely going ahead with the launch of the alliance because it is both a resolution of congress as well as that of the party's national council.

"Everything is going on according to plan and come the 2nd of September, we will be in Bulawayo, Tsvangirai's spokesperson Luke Tamborinyoka told the Daily News yesterday.

Tamborinyoka was coy on how Tsvangirai had treated the letter penned to him by the Bulawayo provincial leadership electing to say it would be indecorous for him to respond to Khupe and other leaders through the media.

"If and when he (Tsvangirai) responds, that will not be in the public because he respects his lieutenants and will engage them through the proper channels and that does not include the media," said Tamborinyoka.

Khupe and the Bulawayo leaders demanded the indefinite postponement of Saturday's event until they get a full appraisal about the alliance as well as the methodology used in allocating parliamentary seats in Matabeleland provinces in particular.

"We further suggest that the launch of the Alliance agreement in Bulawayo scheduled for September 2, 2017 be suspended pending, and to allow consultations with the leadership and the structures," they said in a letter to Tsvangirai.

Khupe, Moyo and Bhebhe were allegedly assaulted by MDC youths a day after the Harare launch of the Alliance when they were accused of holding illegal meetings aimed at derailing the coalition.

The development saw Tsvangirai suspending top officials, including Bhebhe, deputy treasurer-general Charlton Hwende, deputy national youth assembly chairperson Shakespeare Mukoyi and other youths for their roles in the violent clashes in Bulawayo.