'Tendai Biti faces axe'

EXPELLED MDC-T national executive member Last Maengahama has claimed that the party's secretary general Tendai Biti would eventually lose his post following an internal fallout over calls for the opposition party's leader Morgan Tsvangirai to step down.

Maengahama and former MDC-T deputy treasurer-general Elton Mangoma, youth assembly secretary-general Promise Mkwananzi as well as the party's Harare South parliamentary losing candidate Jacob Mafume were dismissed from the party last week for agitating for leadership renewal.

Even though Biti has not publicly called for Tsvangirai to step down, there has been speculation that he was among the party's disgruntled members, a view which was fuelled by his utterances at a public forum recently.

At that forum, the MDC-T secretary-general said opposition politics should not revolve around individual personalities but a team comprising people sharing common values and suggested that a new party, the United Democratic Front should be formed. He added that Zanu-PF won last year's general elections because it had better policies than his party.

In an interview with Chronicle yesterday, Maengahama said the MDC-T has not been quick to punish Biti for the utterances as Tsvangirai wanted to portray a picture of unity to donors, but ultimately the axe would fall on the secretary-general for his stand.

"He (Biti) is not off the hook definitely. They are just being strategic in their purging; they are just delaying the inevitable. They want to use him to portray a semblance of unity for them to get donor funding but come congress they will deal with him," said Maengahama, who was the party's secretary for information and communication technology.

"Tsvangirai and his faction are afraid of all progressive people in the MDC and Biti is one of them. And he has never made his views a secret. Remember when Mangoma was suspended, he addressed a Press conference rubbishing the suspension, also remember his address at a Sapes organised meeting."

Speaking at the Sapes meeting in Harare recently, Biti admitted that Zanu-PF won a free and fair election in July last year because it had a meaningful message of empowerment that coincided with the majority interest.  MDC-T and other opposition parties lacked that, he said.

MDC-T spokesperson Douglas Mwonzora was not immediately available for comment yesterday, but after Mangoma was suspended last month, the party's Harare provincial spokesperson, Obert Gutu, a Tsvangirai loyalist, declared that "The puppet is gone . . . now we go for the puppeteer!"

The reference to a puppeteer has been interpreted as an indication that those who are in support of Tsvangirai's continued leadership of the MDC-T strongly believe that there was a senior member who was behind Mangoma, apparently Biti.

Even though Tsvangirai declared recently that there was harmony in the party's "cockpit", the ongoing bickering and mudslinging exposes continuing strife in the opposition party.