MDC-T split fast approaching

Former prime minister Morgan Tsvangirai's MDC-T party has hit the precipice, The Zimbabwe Mail reported on Saturday.

Sources to the newspaper on Friday said hawks in the party, hitherto fronted by expelled former deputy treasurer-general Elton Mangoma, will Saturday officially announce their separation from the MDC-T and announce the formation of a new movement.

The hawks, now known as the renewal team, have been calling for Tsvangirai to step down as party president and convene an elective congress.

"We are moving out tomorrow (today), chabvondoka, we will officially move away from this marriage that is irretrievably broken down," one of the sources said.

"We cannot continue like this and we are now ready to form a broad alliance in order to extricate this country from the mess (that) it is in. We are holding our national council today and from there on there is no turning back."

Mangoma, the sources said, would be joined by secretary-general Tendai Biti to head the break-away movement. Mangoma and Biti last night flatly declined to  comment on the imminent split.

Spokesperson of the renewal team, Jacob Mafume, could neither deny nor confirm the imminent split. He also declined to confirm whether the team would convene a national council meeting in the capital today.

"When that (split) happens, you will be the first to know, but at the moment I cannot say anything. We will provide official communication at the right time," Mafume said.

MDC-T spokesperson Douglas Mwonzora said the party had not lined up a national council meeting today.

"We have no national council tomorrow (today) and such meetings are only convened by the national chairperson Lovemore Moyo and he has not done that as far as I am concerned," Mwonzora said.  If they (renewal team) want to hold a meeting, we have no problem with that and in fact we are not interested. There is freedom of association and assembly. We only have a problem with people who want to stay in the party to cause chaos."

The MDC-T has been teetering on the brink since its humiliating loss to Zanu PF in the harmonised elections last year, amid growing calls for leadership change.

First was exiled treasurer-general Roy Bennet who said it was important to renew the party's leadership after the poll-loss and in particular called for Tsvangirai to step-down. He was followed by former Marondera legislator Ian Kay who characterised Tsvangirai as a "rust bolt" that needed to be removed.

Ex-Harare Mayor and party national executive member Elias Mudzuri asked Tsvangirai to resign and be "the Mandela of the party" as a way of re-energising the opposition party.

Things came to a head early this year when Mangoma wrote a letter calling on Tsvangirai to step-down and pave way for an elective congress "because his behaviour had resulted in diminishing returns on his and the party's legacy".

Tsvangirai declined the congress suggestion and turned to the party's grassroots for support by calling for a meeting of the MDC-T's 210 district chairpersons that turned violent, culminating in the attack on Mangoma and  now expelled youth assembly secretary-general Promise Mkwananzi. Biti escaped the beating by a whisker.

Mangoma accused Tsvangirai of being the instigator-in-chief of the assault, but the former premier dismissed the claims as hogwash.

In turn, Tsvangirai accused Mangoma and his group of being saboteurs and rebels sponsored by President Robert Mugabe's Zanu PF and enemies of the democratic struggle in Zimbabwe.

The renewal group has accused Tsvangirai of being a "little dictator" and resorting to violence after realising that his position at the helm of the party he helped form and led for 15 years is under threat.