SUSPENDED MDC-T deputy treasurer-general Elton Mangoma yesterday filed a High Court application challenging his suspension from the party as problems continue to dog the labour-based movement.
EVERSON MUSHAVA
The application comes barely a week after MDC-T leader Morgan Tsvangirai publicly announced that internal fights in the party had been addressed and all members were pulling in one direction.
In the application, Mangoma’s lawyer, Jacob Mafume of Mpanga and Bhatasara Attorneys, is arguing that his client’s suspension was done without giving him the chance to be heard. The former Prime Minister, who is fighting to quell an internal rebellion, was cited as the first respondent in his capacity as party leader.
The other respondents are party national chairman Lovemore Moyo, Tendai Biti as the secretary-general and the MDC-T itself.
“The MDC-T breached article 12.1 of its constitution when they suspended him without the decision of a two-thirds majority of members of the national council that is required to send a member of the national executive to a disciplinary process,” Mafume told NewsDay yesterday.
Mangoma, a former negotiator during the subsistence of the inclusive government, was suspended from the MDC-T last month after he wrote a strong-worded letter to Tsvangirai calling on him to step down as party leader claiming his public standing as an individual was destroying the MDC-T brand.
Tsvangirai has been linked to string of women following the death of his wife Susan in a car accident in 2009.
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Mangoma’s call did not go down well with Tsvangirai’s supporters who assaulted him at the party’s Harvest House headquarters in February.
Since then, Mangoma together with Biti, is being castigated at each and every rally addressed by Tsvangirai.
Mafume, a former director in Tsvangirai’s office, is also the spokesperson of the MDC-T “renewal team” opposed to the former Premier’s continued stay as party president.
The team is accusing Tsvangirai of deviating from the party’s founding values, an accusation the MDC-T and his supporters deny.
At the weekend, Tsvangirai told supporters in Gweru that he would not be taught to observe the founding values of the party by people who joined the MDC five years after it was formed and the founding values spelled out.
The infighting has been raging since February.
As the internal fights intensify, the MDC-T renewal team has been holding parallel rallies across the country where they have labelled Tsvangirai a dictator unfit to continue leading the party.
