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FIGHTING BACK: Lucia Matibenga's supporters are hitting back at the MDC leadership
By Sekai Holland
Last updated: 10/30/2007 23:25:42
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WHEN visited Sydney in SAugust this year, Morgan Tsvangirai he made a briefing during which he mentioned that the MDC would adopt a policy of 'Devolution of Power' in the New Zimbabwe.
Knowing how our male leaders work, I asked him where women would be in this scheme, crafted by men with no women present. I demanded reassurance.
I told Tsvangirai that his handicap is his close friends masquerading as advisors who give him bad advice. I quoted the recent dropping of the deputy secretary post, an unconstitutional move.
For MDC women, it has led to the removal of four articulate, solid professional women, who are all graduates. These are Dr Elizabeth Marunda (Policy and Research), Editor Matamisa (Education), Jessica Majome (Legal and Parliamentary Affairs) and Grace Kwinjeh (International Affairs).
They were part of a list of 10 women proposed by Women's Assembly (WA) chair Lucia Matibenga after the March 2006 congress for the NEC, to ensure that MDC met its third quota of women in leadership positions still verbally agreed to by MDC’s top male leaders who reject the SADC, African Union and United Nations 50% women's quota whenever we demand it be honoured. There now remains only two female shadow ministers out of 15 in the new line up. I told Tsvangirai this was unacceptable. Tsvangirai agreed to correct this.
I did not refer to my own sacking as secretary of international affairs in 2003 when I was the first woman casualty of the MDC’s so called ‘Top 6' male chauvinism and dictatorship. I dealt with that painful episode decisively and swiftly when after his announcement, I took the President Tsvangirai and Vice President Gibson Sibanda into the president's office and had my say.
With support from my spouse and a small network, I am still working even after that torture with others by Mugabe's thugs on March 11 to add to pressure on Mugabe by civil society and the MDC members for free and fair elections for a democratic Zimbabwe. For us, the struggle continues till victory!
After Tsvangirai’s reassurances in Sydney, the recent women’s assemly dissolution was unexpected and is a big shock. We read that MDC Youth Assembly (YA) members loyal to Matibenga committed acts of violence against WA delegates in Bulawayo! There are no names provided of the 60 people said to have been injured and taken to Mpilo Hospital. The reason for that is simple, it’s because the YA did not beat up anyone. They performed their duties and did so with respect and excellence.
However, what did happen -- and this information was everywhere a few hours after it happened – is that the night before the congress, Gogo Sanelisiwe Sibanda, popularly known as Gogo Ma Sibanda, had her home stoned as punishment for organising congress delegates according to the MDC constitution, which is how Lucia Matibenga invited the 1500 delegates from all over the country. She followed the MDC constitution.
Ma Sibanda lives at Emakhandeni just near the Hall. Her eyesight is her latest ailment following a long and difficult illness after surgery these past few years. Matibenga had not arrived in Bulawayo when this gruesome act took place against one of the MDC’s strongest founding members. We salute Ma Sibanda for her courage, for her work over the years in organising the MDC in such difficult terrain. Sisonke Gogo MaSibanda! Tiritose Mbuya Sibanda!
Another incident of violence also ignored took place on the day when MDC Tsvangirai faction members of parliament met in Bulawayo. This act is reported to have been committed by the bodyguard of one of the Bulawayo-based NSC members. He hit one of the YA members who sang with others against their own two NSC leaders present for derailing the MDC in Matabeleland by breaking the constitution.
Someone gave Tsvangirai wrong information about what was happening in Bulawayo. He rang the deputy YA chairperson instructing him to address the YA members at Emakhandeni Hall to stop beating people. The YA leader pointed out that he was unaware of a WA congress taking place in Bulawayo. The President had not advised him about such a congress taking place in the first place. YA members were present in force with each delegation from their provinces. As at any party congress, they looked after delegates at Emakhandeni Hall. There was no violence.
Here is what we know from eyewitnesses.
Even Bulawayo-based delegates said that they were not told of the congress venue, agenda or time. By morning stories were about that women were being registered secretly at Selbourne Hotel in the city centre. Once they went inside, their cell phones were taken away from them until after the congress!
By morning leaks confirmed that the congress was booked at Emakhandeni Hall. The properly constituted 1500 delegates went there. There are no secrets in Zimbabwe. It was soon whispered that there was a secret meeting in progress behind closed doors at Vice President Thokozani Khupe’s restaurant. The delegates went there to demand that the congress be convened at the correct venue with all present. The restaurant doors were locked. Some observers inside came out to interview delegates. The Bulawayo province chairperson is a grassroots woman, a party stalwart. She apparently went to the restaurant meeting and was ejected from there!
Matibenga as chairperson addressed delegates outside the VP's restaurant. The delegates adopted a resolution that those not attending the Congress at the venue booked by the party were deemed absent. Police arrived to confirm that Emakhandeni Hall was booked by the MDC for the WA congress that day. They advised the women to return there. The delegates made another plea for those locked inside the restaurant to return to the venue and join the other delegates. They refused. Tsvangirai was apparently advised about this situation.
There are those who write that two congresses were held. The restaurant group did not invite their delegates according to the requirements of the MDC constitution. Lucia Matibenga did. The restaurant group did not have the constitutional composition of delegates to claim that they held a congress. They even discussed whether to set up an interim committee -- another unconstitutionality, an anomaly! But they then concluded to make themselves the real WA NEC.
In Zimbabwe the worst tragedies produce humour as well. There are many hilarious stories from the restaurant crowd from those who were locked in!
The Emakhandeni party congress deliberated. They resolved not to dissolve their NEC but gap-filled the posts of those absent. The meting resolved to hold their annual conference this year.
The new WA NEC line up is:
Chairperson – Lucia Matibenga (Midlands South) Deputy Chairperson – Sanelisiwe Sibanda (Bulawayo) Secretary – Faith Musarurwa (Harare) Deputy Secretary – (Manicaland Province to provide their name) Organising Secretary – Lucia Masekesa (Masvingo) Deputy Organising Secretary – Constance Taruvinga (Chitungwiza) Treasurer – Chetamasile Katanga – (Mashonaland Central Information and Publicity – Catherine Bobo (Midlands North).
Those writing in the press expose their naivety. Accusations are that women want Tapiwa Mashakada and Gift Chimanikire as new MDC leaders! How insulting to women's intelligence! After everything that has been done to people inside the country by Robert Mugabe, the father of male chauvinism, ordinary people see through the stupidity of all forms of chauvinisms in Zimbabwe. The women at Emakhandeni Hall this weekend were clear. The 50% will be a reality this time. They were jubilant.
Those leadership qualities of those NSC members who made the dissolution decision will be tested in the next few days. Their judgment would be how they work out the solution to bring the party back on an even keel and tap the women's energy displayed at Emakhandeni Hall, not only for our party's survival but for victory in 2008. There is no going back. Matibenga has demonstrated the required skills not only to provide principled leadership internationally, but inside Zimbabwe itself. The weekend proved that.
Matibenga as WA chairperson and Nelson Chamisa as YA chairperson saved President Tsvangirai by mobilising consultative gatherings around Zimbabwe when he was nearly toppled on October 12, 2005, by his ‘Top 6’ colleagues. The claim that Matibenga was offered the deputy chairperson's post to replace acting chairperson Lovemore Moyo is presumptuous. Matibenga refused this offer outright.
This is yet another strategy to get women fighting. On one hand Matibenga is expected to vacate her post by backdoor unconstitutional male deals to make way for a favoured-by-male-leaders woman, to kill off the very body in the party for women's advancement. On the other she is being made to fight with me. I stood as deputy chairperson at the March 2006 congress. Our men fished out Lovemore Moyo who stood and lost in the Arthur Mutambara-led MDC congress the week before, to block me.
So far when people ask me my plans, I tell them that as soon as I am well I am returning home and will contest for the deputy chairperson's post at this year's annual conference. So Matibenga and I are to fight each other for this post!
The offer to Matibenga is unconstitutional. We have to fill in the chairperson's post at the annual conference whenever that is held, as well as the deputy chairperson's, by voting. The restaurant politics has shifted all that to something new and exciting.
In conclusion, MDC party structures at home are united that we must all be bound by our constitution. Men and women are standing shoulder to shoulder to ensure that observance of the constitution becomes an integral part of MDC culture, Zimbabwe's culture.
Also, Zimbabweans everywhere are exhausted. We are in endless pain emotional and physical. For example my whole left side has been bad again since all this drama began. This latest male chauvinist abuse is dragging all our positive energies to ground. It is the height of arrogance, whoever thought out that plan to hold this charade in Bulawayo. After everything that has been done by the regime to the people of Bulawayo! Udiniwe uBulawayo bakithi! VokuBulawayo vaneta veduwe!
Bulawayo is exhausted with Zimbabwe's political antics, always emanating unexpectedly from Harare in their backyard. This morning when we spoke to members who attended the congress and others, the restaurant, they said that Bulawayo was sad at the tragedy played out in their city. Others were in fits of laughter at the Harare circus that they said had come to play out its foolish show in their otherwise quiet city over the weekend. Bulawayo residents are mostly stunned.
Sekai Holland is an active MDC member. She writes from Sydney, Australia
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