Cracks emerge in MDC-T’s Luveve district

This emerged at a charged meeting held in the suburb yesterday.
Party supporters are up in arms against the party’s deputy organising secretary Mr Abednigo Bhebhe over what they say was his conducting of “sham” elections to elect the district executive for Luveve a few months ago.
Luveve district encompasses Luveve, Gwabalanda and Cowdray Park suburbs.
Furious party members alleged that the organising secretary did not follow the party’s constitution when he conducted the  elections.
They accused Mr Bhebhe of working in cahoots with Luveve MP, Mr Reggie Moyo to position people who are aligned to them, to head the district.
A fuming member of the party Mr Musavengane Machingura said as supporters they wanted people to be voted on the basis of their commitment to upholding principles of the party.  He said the party position was that even the party leader, Mr Morgan Tsvangirai should be voted out if he deviates from the party principles.
“Some people are shifting goal posts for their own benefit. If anyone deviates from the party principles espoused at its formation in 1999 we will oppose the particular person regardless of his or her position in the party,” he said.
Mr Machingura said he was pained to see that there were people within the party who were bent on destroying it.
“We have a lot of problems here in Luveve. There are people who are bent on destroying our party.
“We wanted the area divided into two districts. As you know there are people who say they cannot work with so and so because of the reasons known to them,” he said.
A highly emotional supporter who refused to be named said they would have wanted the party’s president to come personally and bring order to the highly divided party in the constituency.
“The party is suffering here because of the factions .
We want Nelson Chamisa (the organising secretary) or even the president Tsvangirai address the problems their colleagues created,” he said.
After the meeting the supporters resolved to split the constituency into two districts, Cowdray Park and Luveve, with the latter being combined with Gwabalanda.
Speaking on the sidelines of the meeting councillor for ward 28 Clr Collet Ndlovu said the people had resolved to split the party district into two.
“The resolution was to create another district so that Cowdray Park stands on its own. There are 23 000 houses in Cowdray Park,” he said.
Clr Ndlovu said the reason why the meeting was called was to get to the root of the problem.
He said some people tried to sabotage the meeting by reporting to the police that the party did not sanction the meeting.
“There were some sections within this party that were reporting to the police that this meeting was not sanctioned by the party.
“This clearly shows that there are people who do not want us to solve the problems,” Clr Ndlovu said.
He said as a result of the problems in Luveve a number of people had defected to Professor Welshman Ncube led MDC.
“There are people who have crossed floors to Welshman’s camp because of the way people are treated. I have seen a list from councillor Israel Mabaleka, which shows the people who have crossed floor. The situation it is serious. Let us sit down and find an amicable solution to these problems,” he said.
Contacted for comment Mr Bhebhe said those who claimed that the district elections were irregular were not MDC-T supporters as they did not use proper channels to report their problems.
“Whoever said that is not a member of the party. They know what channels to follow, not to run to the press,” Mr Bhebhe said.
He said as far as he was concerned there were no problems in Luveve.
Whoever spoke to you was dreaming because as far as I am concerned there are no problems in Luveve. Those who have  problems should follow the proper channels,” he said.