Tsvangirai ally re-ignites old MDC succession battles
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Tsvangirai ally re-ignites old MDC succession battles

Luke Tamborinyoka and the late Morgan Tsvangirai

FORMER MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai’s spokesperson Luke Tamborinyoka has promised to release audio recordings of his late boss’s preferences for successor as the battle for his successor rages on within the main opposition party.

Luke Tamborinyoka and the late Morgan Tsvangirai
Luke Tamborinyoka and the late Morgan Tsvangirai

Tamborinyoka, who is MDC director of communications, said this in an opinion piece he published with the local media.

Tsvangirai died February 14 this year following a long battle with colon cancer.

His death ignited a fierce stampede for his job by his lieutenants, top among them his then deputies Nelson Chamisa, Thokozani Khupe and Elias Mudzuri.

Party secretary general Douglas Mwonzora, likewise, has been licking his lower lips for the job.

On the news of his boss’s death, Chamisa reacted faster than the rest and stampeded the rest from the country’s second most influential political job in the country.

But in the ensuing melee, Tamborinyoka budged in and became a key component of the lottery, telling all and sundry that Tsvangirai, in his deathbed, announced though him, that he had appointed the 40-year-old Chamisa as acting party leader, inviting strong rebuke from MDC hawks who felt the former Daily News journalist was doing Chamisa’s bidding.

Now 10 months later, and as the MDC’s succession battle shows no signs of abating, Tamborinyoka says he was ready to release Tsvangirai audios to counter claims by what he does not tame although suggestioning to be party co-VP Mudzuri whom he accuses of putting a spirited bid for the MDC top job through proxies who claim to be “restoring Tsvangirai’s legacy”.

“…The broad democratic movement has been infiltrated, with Zanu PF largesse being doled out to some in the MDC leadership in a bid to influence the upcoming party Congress by foisting a pliable and subservient leadership that will endorse Mnangagwa and do Zanu PF’s bidding,” Tamborinyoka said.

“Turncoats and cheque-book politicians that have been bought over by this regime are threatening to tear apart the people’s movement.

“Some are even sponsoring dubious pressure groups in a bid to effect leadership change at the forthcoming Congress. One such pressure group claims its agenda is to “restore” Tsvangirai’s Legacy.

“I posit without equivocation that one cannot purport to be fighting for the restoration of Tsvangirai’s legacy while at the same time fighting the MDC Alliance. You can’t!

He added, “Those of us who served Tsvangirai for many years know what he truly wanted, particularly myself as his spokesperson and trusted lieutenant.

“As turncoats, pretenders and mercenaries move around the country seeking to profit from the towering Tsvangirai brand and spreading lies in his name, especially ahead of the MDC Congress slated for 2019, I will soon be setting the record straight.

“As I promised some months ago, I shall at the appropriate time be releasing audios containing Tsvangirai’s succession preferences, in his own words and in his own voice.

“I promised him I would do that as a valediction to my service as his spokesman upon his demise when he told me he felt it within himself that his ailment would take him to his grave.

“I have been agonising over the timing of the release of this material because I did not wish to be seen as swaying or tilting a democratic process in anyone’s favour but I am being forced by the falsehoods now being peddled by uninformed charlatans hell-bent on lying about Tsvangirai in order to foist themselves into power at the forthcoming Congress.” – Newzim

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