MDC T battling to retain Chamisa

The Morgan Tsvangirai led MDC T is reportedly battling to keep Nelson Chamisa who wants to quit the party and cross the floor to the new MDC Reunification programme currently under way.

Chamisa who is former Organising Secretary for the party and "losing" Secretary General candidate in the just ended elective congress is reported to have tendered a verbal resignation to party vice president Thokozani Khuphe hours after the end of the congress. Chamisa who going to the congress appeared to be the people's favourite to land the Secretary General position with 11 of the 12 provincial nominations going his way controversially and unexpectedly lost the position to Douglas Mwonzora who had only 1 provincial nomination.

Since the election results were announced members of the party have been left stunned showing clear division in the party with many calling for an explanation how Chamisa had lost while a smaller group is celebrating Mwonzora victory. Reliable sources from Harare claim that party president Morgan Tsvangirai has kept quiet on the results and on threats by Chamisa to quit the party as he is believed to be part of the group celebrating Chamisa's fall. Tsvangirai is reported to have been against Chamisa winning the Secretary General post as he viewed the young politician as a threat to him.

Newly reinstated Chairman Lovemore Moyo, Vice President Khuphe and unnamed few other senior leaders are reported to have gone through sunday night trying to convince Chamisa not to leave the party nor take the party to court on the election. According to some reports, Chamisa will this morning be applying to the High Court to dismiss both the congress and elections. It is believed that he is aware that such a move will lead to his immediate dismissal from the party which will lead him to join the new "Reunited" MDC.

Chamisa is a former chairperson of the MDC Youth Assembly. He was elected MDC spokesman at the party Congress in June 2006. In April 2011 at the Party's congress in Bulawayo, he was elected as the Party's Organising secretary, a post which previously belonged to Elias Mudzuri. He is also the Member of Parliament for Kuwadzana in Harare.

In Parliament, he is a member of the portfolio committees of Defence and Home Affairs, Public Accounts, Gender and Youth and Transport and Communications. He is also a member of the Local Government, Public Works & Urban Development and the African Caribbean and Pacific Parliament. He is a former secretary general of the Zimbabwe National Students Union which makes him a very powerful figure for the MDC T to lose.

One of the sources who spoke to Bulawayo 24 threatened that if Tsvangirai fails to retain Chamisa that will be the end of his reign as leader of the MDC.

"We know Tsvangirai is behind Chamisa's loss and if ever Chamisa leaves the party that also marks the end of Tsvangirai's leadership of the MDC because he will have to explain to us what really happened," said the source.

Another source said that Tsvangirai deliberately made sure that Chamisa lost the election as Chamisa was leading a group against a lot of constitutional reforms which Tsvangirai "bulldozed" through at the congress. The reforms which most MDC T members have described as a copy of the ZANU PF constitution give Tsvangirai very sweeping powers in the running of the party which Chamisa was against and so had to be eliminated. Fears were high in the pro Tsvangirai leaders of the party that if Chamisa was left in the top hierarchy of the party he was likely to lead another split against Tsvangirai especially on the constitutionally reforms.