The ManicaPost
Rufaro Mufundirwa Post Correspondent
Patson Murimoga, an MDC-T activist from Chitungwiza will rue the day he challenged his leader Morgan Tsvangirai’s decision to unilaterally appoint two extra deputies. The young man received death threats from Tsvangirai’s fanatic supporters led by the party’s youth leader Happymore Chidziva. The threats have forced Murimoga to seek refuge at a Western embassy.
The unilateral appointment of Nelson Chamisa and Elias Mudzuri, both from Masvingo threatened another crack in the MDC-T as senior members of the party including Tsvangirai’s deputy, Thokozani Khupe openly contested the decision. It took serious threats to silence the senior MDC-T members. The appointment exposed the duplicity of Tsvangirai who used to blame Zanu PF for having a bloated presidium, cabinet and government in general.
Analysts said chances were high that Tsvangirai would uphold his bloated presidium in the event that he forms the next government. His government, analysts said, would be more swollen than the present one. While announcing his demands on coalition terms recently, Tsvangirai said the coalition would have a lean government. However, the present structure of his party does not in any way reflects a man who is fond of a lean structure.
This is the anomaly that Murimoga, in the name of democracy, intended to constitutionally address. He was deceived by the misnomer in the name of his party into thinking it was a real movement that champion for democracy. Murimoga should have looked back and see what happened to others who attempted to tread the same path.
That would have helped him and he would have not lost his freedom as is the situation currently. In case he is oblivious, he must do a bit of research on what happened to Trudy Stephenson, Welshman Ncube and his crew, Elton Mangoma, Tendai Biti. Tsvangirai’s relations with these former allies severed after they were misconstrued as threats to his throne.
Murimoga should have realised that in the MDC-T, the buck stops with Tsvangirai. He is the Alpha and Omega of the MDC-T and the face of the opposition politics in Zimbabwe. This explains why he has recently set terms of coalition that put him at a vantage position. Murimoga could have been grown-up when Mangoma faced Tsvangirai’s wrath for suggesting a leadership renewal following an embarrassing hiding in the 2013 plebiscites. Tsvangirai does not accept any advice from anyone. This is why the people employed by his party to advise him never last. Alex Magaisa can testify.
Murimoga told the media that he was at the Western embassy since August this year. It is hoped that the ambassador who is giving refuge is relaying the happenings in the MDC-T to his home country, which is the party’s benefactor. They must be briefed so that they get to fully understand what Tsvangirai and his party are made of. It vindicates the long held conviction that violence and totalitarianism are in the MDC-T and Tsvangirai’s deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA).
But Chiziva must come back to his senses and ask himself if it is really worth to annihilate human life for Morgan Tsvangirai. He might have been, of course, promised big a position in Tsvangirai’s government which has been in the sky since 1999 but common sense alone can tell him there is no future in that party. Tsvangirai himself is aware of this reality and this is the reason why he is trying to court everyone into his tent.
Chidziva must realise that Tsvangirai will never defend him when the long hand of the law taps on his shoulder. There are other overzealous youths who did the same and are languishing in jail today. Only last week, his colleagues, Tungamirai Madzokere, Yvonne Musarurwa and Last Maengahama were slapped with 20 years imprisonment for killing Police Inspector Petros Mutedzi in Glenview, five years ago. Their families will soon be destitute and the MDC-T or Tsvangirai himself will not assist them in any way. Sometimes Dutch courage, which seems to grip the MDC-T goons, does not pay.
Some of these goons destroyed properties in Harare, Bulawayo and Beitbridge during the riotous demonstrations against the introduction of bond notes and the Statutory Instrument 64 of 2016 which were respectively meant to arrest liquidity challenge and capacitate local industry.
Chidziva told the media that he was not a violent person and refuted that he threatened Murimoga. He said he only gave a statement. He underestimates the power of an inciting statement such as his. He forgets that the Rwandan genocide of 2004 was sparked by such inciting statements put out through the media, just as he did.
