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Upheaval in women's wing exposes MDC's weaknesses on strategy
Edith Kaseke, ZimOnline
October 29, 2007

http://www.zimonline.co.za/Article.aspx?ArticleId=2232

HARARE - Zimbabwe's main opposition faction could be further weakened after ousting and replacing the executive of its women's assembly, a vital cog in the party, analysts said, warning that this was exposing the opposition's weaknesses on strategy on the eve of crucial elections in 2008.

The opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) is struggling to regain its potency that saw it nearly sweep President Robert Mugabe and his ruling ZANU-PF from power in 2000 following a damaging split in October 2005, which left it with two competing factions.

Political analysts say while Mugabe has been consolidating power, the main opposition wing led by Morgan Tsvangirai has been battling to emerge from the 2005 split and is immersed in internal strife as members position themselves for seats in an enlarged parliament next year.

Some party officials have accused Tsvangirai of seeking to strengthen his so-called "kitchen cabinet," a group of MDC officials whom the former trade union leader is said to rely on to make key party decisions. Tsvangirai denies he has a kitchen cabinet.

"It would seem the MDC is lacking strategy because what it needs now is to present a united front to give confidence to its supporters as we approach elections," Eldred Masunungure, a leading political analyst said.

"They can ill-afford another fallout. The ZANU-PF election machinery is in full gear while the MDC is busy trying to get over its internal strife," said Masunungure.

Yesterday, the MDC women's assembly replaced trade unionist Lucia Matibenga at a hastily arranged women's congress in Bulawayo with Theresa Makone, wife of Ian Makone a close Tsvangirai ally who is also financing the party's activities.

Opposition party officials who spoke to ZimOnline said there was growing disgruntlement in the MDC on how activists financing the party had become too powerful and sidelining members from the trade union wing who formed the party.

The MDC was formed in 1999, grounded in the main trade union movement, the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions, which had carried out crippling strikes against Mugabe's government.

In the 2000 parliamentary elections, the party went on to win 57 of the 120 contested seats, the first time that Mugabe's iron-grip on power had been threatened.

The MDC argues that Matibenga's executive was ineffective and that the election of new leaders of the women assembly would revive the party ahead of presidential and parliamentary elections scheduled for March 2008.

Matibenga had sought the intervention of the courts, arguing that the dissolution of her executive was illegal. The High Court ruled that women's assembly congress should decide the issue.

Some political analysts said the MDC was justified in shaking up the women's assembly and that this would not necessarily weaken the party.

"I think this was necessary because if they had kept a tight lead on these problems, you would have eventually had all kinds of problems as we see in

ZANU-PF today," John Makumbe, a senior political lecturer at the University of Zimbabwe told ZimOnline.

"It is a sifting process and the fact that the women's assembly voted in the manner they did maybe it vindicates the leadership's decision (to dissolve the women's assembly)," Makumbe said.

But Makumbe warned that the opposition should not forget that it was a worker driven party. There is concern among some members that the party was being taken over by elitist individuals.

"The MDC should always remember its origins and I can't think of any woman who could be more trade unionist than Matibenga," he said.

Analysts say an economic meltdown -- shown by the world's highest inflation rate of nearly 8 000 percent, rocketing unemployment and shortages of food foreign currency and fuel - rather than the opposition, presents the most serious threat to Mugabe's rule.

Mugabe has ruled Zimbabwe since independence in 1980 and critics say the veteran leader has ruined the once vibrant economy through controversial policies such as seizing vast tracts of land from whites to resettle blacks.

But a defiant Mugabe says he is a victim of Western sanctions and that the MDC is a puppet of the West. On Friday he accused the MDC of being 'cry wolf boys' making false allegations of violations against security forces and ZANU-PF supporters.

Meanwhile, Matibenga and her supporters conducted a separate congress of their own in Bulawayo at which she was re-elected leader of the women's assembly to highlight the deepening level of confusion and indiscipline in the opposition party.

Matibenga and her supporters later held a demonstration denouncing MDC vice-president Thokozani Khupe and chairman Lovemore Moyo who they accused of causing the dismissal of her executive.

Police had to intervene to disperse Matibenga supporters as it appeared violence could break out between the supporters and delegates attending the women's assembly congress. - ZimOnline

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