'We created a monster in Tsvangirai,' says Sipepa Nkomo

The futile attempts to dislodge Morgan Tsvangirai from his perch as leader of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC-T), was necessary, to depersonalise the party and get rid of the monster we had created, an erstwhile senior member of the party said.

National Assembly member for Lobengula, Samuel Sipepa Nkomo, made these remarks while contributing to a debate at a public meeting organised by Bulawayo based non governmental organisations, Bulawayo Agenda, Radio Dialogue and Habakkuk Trust, at a Bulawayo Hotel on Thursday.

The meeting, attended by the country's major political parties, sought to unpack the discord within these movements.

Sipepa Nkomo represented the MDC-Team, while Abednico Bhebhe represented the MDC-T. ZAPU was represented by its Alternate Secretary General Strike Mnkandla, ZANU PF by Christopher Dube, the Bulawayo Province Vice Chairman.

Nhlanhla Dube represented the Professor Welshman Ncube led MDC.

Nkomo defended their decision to have their meeting that suspended Tsvangirai and other top officials, at Mandel Training Centre, instead of Harvest House, the party headquarters.

"We met at Mandel, because meeting at Harvest House, you get beaten. Free expression of views is not allowed and if your get near that place you will be beaten.

"That national council made the decision to depersonalise the party because we cannot the party by a person's name, so we depersonalised the party. I have been in politics for a long time and I have seen people actually creating monsters within the party," said Nkomo.

"The person doesn't start off as a monster but we create a monster out of a person and therefore we realised that we actually had created a monster and we needed to depersonalise so that a person can accept to move on and hand over the baton."

Nkomo appealed to every "sensible member of the party" to support their cause because Tsvangirai was promoting a culture of violence in the party.

"MDC-Tsvangirai was an identity going to elections. We had a problem in 2008, there were two parties that fielded candidates under the same name, MDC, and for clarity so that when we go out to campaign, we needed to put that suffix, T, so that we people identify our party," Bhebhe shot back.

He also dismissed Nkomo's claims that Tsvangirai was fanning violence in the party.

"Some people are saying Tsvangirai is violent and has a group of youths that were attacking people. I know for a fact, coasters (minibuses) would leave Bulawayo with youths going to Harare, to Harvest House. What were they going there to do? For us to grand stand here and say there is one person who is violent when we know that you (Sipepa Nkomo) were provoking that violence," said Bhebhe.

MDC-T's infighting that had been going on for months finally resulted in a split, a faction calling for leadership renewal holding a meeting which voted to "suspend" party leader Morgan Tsvangirai and several other top party officials.

In turn, Tsvangirai suspended the leaders of the faction which included the party's secretary general Tendai Biti.