MDC-T leaders' wealth raising eyebrows

HARARE - From driving lavish 4-litre fuel-guzzling cars to quaffing rare whiskies, the display of wealth by the new ruling elite in Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai's MDC party is raising eyebrows among the party's struggling poor majority.

The emergence of bling culture, now apparent among the powerful Standing Committee and top leadership, has prompted soul-searching in a party that says it is pro-poor. The widening gap between the ruling class and the ruled is creating uncomfortable disparities and an unequal party hierarchy, with social activists equating it to "spitting in the face of the poor".

The committee includes the following nominated members in addition to the party's office bearers: Emma Muzondiwa, Evelyn Masaiti, Jessie Majome, Sithembile Mlotshwa, Edirto Matamisa, Egness Mhloyi, Last Maengehama, Settlement Chikwinya, Giles Mutseyekwa, Jameson Timba, Seiso Moyo and Joel Gebuzza.

The violence that erupted at the recent congress, after the party failed to pay security guards, is being blamed on class struggles within the party. The security guards openly shouted that they should not be used to open gates for the chefs' big cars for nothing. They protested by locking the gates, with MDC president Morgan Tsvangirai outside the congress, a move that sparked pitched clashes between Tsvangirai's security and the gate guards.

The show of wealth has been lambasted by the party's rank and file. While it was accepted that not all party supporters could attend the dinner hosted for guest of honour Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga, where champagne flowed all night, the news of the extravagance at the dinner reached the party supporters crowded in the dinghy Mzilikazi surburb near the dirt-poor Makokoba.

Odinga was chauffered from the airport in  limousine. "It is the sight of these big cars, where the party elite display their wealth, that churns the stomach of most poor party supporters," said political commentator Ronald Shumba. In his solidarity speech at the congress on Friday, union leader Lovemore Matombo said the MDC had been hijacked by capitalists. "Vote-buying is now a serious problem in the MDC," Matombo said, adding that the poor were no longer able to win an election in the MDC.

The party, which one senior official said was in the "departure lounge" ready to get into government, was now overwhelmed by pseudo-leaders emerging out of nowhere "carrying knives and guns to fight for leadership positions."

But while allegations of elitism is dogging the MDC, party supporters hailed its President Morgan Tsvangirai's "exemplary modesty, honesty and integrity."

"The problem is that mudhara (Tsvangirai) is now surrounded by sharks," said Shame Moyo, a youthful MDC activist who has been battered for his support for the MDC. The current internecine MDC infighting is being fuelled by the show of wealth – indicating that this is what it means to be in political office. Shumba said the party was becoming exactly what it had fought against since its inception.

Political analysts say there is an emerging clique that seems to believe that access to political office is a means to get super-rich, without making any effort to be an entrepreneur. There are more and more business persons leaving their offices to be MPs and ministers in the MDC. "The MDC, which is essentially a labour-backed party, risks becoming neoliberal, and pro-capitalist," Shumba said.

"You just have to ask what the MDC has done for workers in its two years in government," said a labour activist who declined to be named. "Anti-working class policy positions are emerging. The working class, so to speak, has to quickly awaken to the fact that it may be politically out-manoeuvred, surrounded by enemy forces and being vulnerable, to quote Mao Zedong, to the strategy of 'encirclement and suppression'."

The unionist said there was exploitation of the majority by a small but powerful ruling class in the MDC. Shumba said there were two rich classes emerging in the MDC, those who think they are entitled to riches flowing from their association with the MDC as a reward for their personal suffering, and "mafikizolos," either with powerful connections in the donor community and those who owe their positions solely to their association with Tsvangirai.  The latter is the one which has infuriated the party rank-and-file the most.

"It is this spitting in the face of the poor and insulting their integrity that is infuriating everyone," said John Matende, a staunch MDC supporter.