Zimbabwe opposition leader Nelson Chamisa the MDC alliance president vowed to get back everything that his party lost in the battle with rival faction MDC T lead by Senetor Douglas Mwonzora.
Chamisa said his faction (the MDC alliance) would get back everything it lost to the Mwonzora faction, including the party’s Morgan Richard Tsvangirai (MRT) headquarters.
He said the MDC Alliance did not react radically to the “illegal State-assisted” takeover of the party headquarters by the Douglas Mwonzora-led MDC-T faction because it wanted to give peace a chance.
Speaking in an interview with HSTV, Chamisa opened up on his relationship with Mwonzora, disclosing that he had to negotiate with Giles Mutsekwa to step down and pave way for his former secretary-general turned tormentor to be Senator for Manicaland after he begged him.
“If you have people getting open support from the State to take over illegally and criminally the headquarters of the party and of course, we are waiting for the Supreme Court to determine this issue, you know that kind of act is criminal, flagrant violation of the law,” Chamisa said.
“We have not responded in a radical manner because we want to give peace a chance, but we will get back everything that was taken away from the organisation.”
The MDC-T took over the MRT house last year with the aid of the military and armed police after a controversial Supreme Court ruling that declared Chamisa’s presidency of the opposition party illegal.
The MDC Alliance challenged the takeover of the party headquarters and the Supreme Court is still to make a determination.
Chamisa said he served Mwonzora embarrassment after he had lost primary polls to represent the people in Manicaland. Mwonzora, Chamisa said, begged him to accorded a senatorial position.
“I am the one who appointed Mwonzora on bended knees after he had failed to secure a seat as a Member of Parliament in Nyanga,” Chamisa said.
“He then came to me and said, look, Mr President, can you accommodate me on the list of proportional representatives in the Senate because I don’t have where I would serve the people of Zimbabwe from.
“I said, fine that’s fine, we had to convince Giles Mutsekwa in Manicaland because he was the one on the list after provincial consultations to actually step aside for Mwonzora because he was senior in the party.
Chamisa said he did the same for Morgen Komichi and Elias Mudzuri.
“They pretend as if they were parachuted from nowhere to be senators, we appointed them, but you know borrowed robes are very temporary, watch this space,” he said.
Referring to the 2014 congress held in Harare where Chamisa lost to Mwonzora for the secretary-general post, MDC Alliance said the MDC-T leader never won against him.
“Which election, we don’t want to go into it. They know what they did in 2014 when they claimed they won. I don’t want to speak ill of the dead,” Chamisa said.
“They know what they did, including the role of the State. They released money at night without following procedure from CBZ and the Reserve Bank and that money was released to some people in the party as a way of stopping Chamisa. This project of trying to fight the people’s representatives started way back.”
Chamisa said after his defeat to Mwonzora, he had talks with Tsvangirai over the issue.
He said Zanu-PF had always targeted the MDC for infiltration.
“I have said that because we are a big organisation, the bigger the size, the bigger the risks and hazards of infiltration, an elephant will always have an elephant of problems, a rat will always have a rat’s problems. Size determines the size of your challenges,” Chamisa said.
