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Fidelis Munyoro and Felex Share Harare Bureau
MDC Renewal Team yesterday defied a High Court order and went ahead with disciplinary hearings on MDC-T leader Mr Morgan Tsvangirai and chairman Lovemore Moyo, whereupon a default judgment on the two, to be announced on Monday, was issued. Tsvangirai and Moyo were facing a slew of charges laid against them by the Renewal Team led by suspended MDC-T secretary general Tendai Biti.
The disciplinary hearing, led by lawyers Gift Nyandoro and Tafadzwa Mugabe, went ahead at Mandel Training Centre at the same time the High Court was delivering a ruling stopping the proceedings.
MDC Renewal Team spokesperson Jacob Mafume said they did not recognise the High Court ruling as they had not been served with the relevant court papers.
“The tribunal sat at 10am and all parties were advised to come, but Tsvangirai and Moyo did not turn up and a default judgment was passed,” he said.
“We have been told that they went to court seeking interim relief so that they remain on suspension pending the hearing of the matter before the High Court. However, the tribunal and the other parties have not been served with the papers.
“We proceeded as if nothing happened until a time we are served with the papers.”
Mafume added: “We have not seen the application or the judgment. We believe that before a judgment was passed we should have been served such that we file our papers. But if they have been granted an interim relief we shall proceed by putting our papers if that application applies to us.”
Tsvangirai’s camp, through Thamsanqa Mahlangu and Lovemore Moyo, had approached the High Court on Thursday evening seeking an order barring the Renewal Team from implementing the resolution of the Mandel Training Centre meeting of April 26 this year.
Justice Zhou yesterday ruled in favour of Tsvangirai’s camp, saying the balance of convenience favoured the embattled opposition party leader in view of the circumstances surrounding the feud between the two hostile camps.
He granted the provisional order which the MDC-T leader had sought to stop the hearing until the dispute pitting his camp and Mr Biti’s camp was determined.
“Interim relief is granted on the following, respondent or any other persons claiming through them or acting on their instruction be and are hereby interdicted from proceeding with any disciplinary proceedings against the third applicant (Tsvangirai) or any other office bearers of the second respondent on June 27, 2014 or some other time in pursuant to the resolution of a meeting held at Mandel Training Centre on April 20, 2014,” said Justice Zhou.
Tsvangirai’s faction filed the urgent application barely two days after it filed a normal court application seeking to be declared the legitimate custodians of the party and an order compelling the Biti faction to return party assets in its possession.
MDC-T spokesperson Douglas Mwonzora said Tsvangirai’s faction was happy that he was no longer compelled to attend the Renewal Team disciplinary hearing. “We are happy because dragging president Tsvangirai to a hearing of another political party was illegal and unfair,” he said.
Tsvangirai was recently summoned by Biti’s faction to appear before a disciplinary committee facing 17 counts of violating the party’s constitution, while Moyo faced four counts, which included failure to conduct free and fair primary elections before last year’s harmonised polls.
Meanwhile, MDC-T leader Tsvangirai said his erstwhile secretary-general Tendai Biti must learn from his predecessors who split from the party only to become perennial political failures.
Tsvangirai said this yesterday while he was in Gweshe village in Chiweshe where he addressed a handful of MDC supporters and was accompanied by the party deputy chairman Morgan Komichi.
Tsvangirai said his rivals failed to learn from those who left the party before but failed to exist on their own.
“The rebellion in 2005 by Welshman Ncube was a rebellion of trying to support Zanu-PF. Today, the rebellion by Biti and Mangoma is the same and there’s no renewal in it. In 2005, a small group left the party as well as in 2008 but the party is still going, and we wonder who the strong ones are,” said Tsvangirai.
“As a party, we are saying we should go in this direction and achieve these goals but someone starts to distort everything. Have you yet achieved what you set out to do in the beginning? Their only message is Tsvangirai must go, so when are you going to start to say Zanu-PF must go? You are wasting all your time saying Tsvangirai must go, is he Zanu-PF?
Tsvangirai claimed he had all the support from his party supporters who were rallying behind his efforts.
“A lot of people in the party know what we are doing, and they also know where we are going and they support it because they are sure that we are almost there. People of Zimbabwe know that victory is certain and I even know that myself. It will be a great betrayal to all those who have stood by us, if we fail this struggle,” he said.
He added: “If anyone wants to leave the party, they should do so peacefully and let us do what we are doing in the MDC. It is not proper to say this one needs to step off so that we get on his spot, it shouldn’t be done that way.”
MDC deputy national chairman Komichi weighed in and took a swipe at those who broke away from the MDC.
“In the Bible, those Israelites who criticised and turned against Moses, the land opened up and swallowed all of them, today Biti and Mangoma have faced the same fate. We should come together, be united and fight those who want to use money to divide us,” said Komichi.
Bongani Ndlovu
Online Reporter