Zimbabwe’s opposition Movement for Democratic Change says it is suspending its leader Morgan Tsvangirai, amid deepening divisions in its ranks.<\/p>\n
A statement issued by the party after a meeting in Harare accused him of a “remarkable failure of leadership”.<\/p>\n
It also said he had deviated from the party’s democratic founding principles.<\/p>\n
Mr Tsvangirai lost a third election challenge to veteran President Robert Mugabe in 2013 and defied calls to stand down after this defeat.<\/p>\n
The MDC leadership is reported to have been riven with in-fighting for months since then.<\/p>\n
A BBC reporter in Zimbabwe says the MDC appears to be heading for a split that will only strengthen Mr Mugabe’s hold on power.<\/p>\n
Several other senior party figures were also reported to have been suspended at Saturday’s meeting, and some suspended members to have been reinstated.<\/p>\n
Tensions brewing<\/p>\n
The MDC statement said the party had been “transformed into a fiefdom of the leader” under Mr Tsvangirai. It also accused him of sponsoring a culture of violence against MDC members not aligned with him.<\/p>\n
MDC Secretary General Tendai Biti, who spoke to journalists after the meeting, said Mr Tsvangirai and some other senior officials had “betrayed” the MDC’s struggle, AFP reported.<\/p>\n
But an MDC spokesperson, Douglas Mwonzora, maintained that Mr Tsvangirai remained the MDC’s legitimate leader.<\/p>\n
“This was not a national council meeting,” he told AFP.<\/p>\n
David Coltart, a founding member of the MDC, told the BBC that Mr Tsvangirai’s suspension – although not unexpected – was a bad thing for democracy in Zimbabwe.<\/p>\n
“I’m not surprised this has happened because tensions have been brewing for quite a long time.<\/p>\n
“But I am concerned about this. What we need in the opposition is consolidation, not further splitting.<\/p>\n
“Morgan Tsvangirai, for whatever can be levelled against him, remains a very popular figure and we really do need him as part of the overall democratic forces,” Mr Coltart said.<\/p>\n
From 2009-2013 Mr Tsvangirai served as prime minister in a fragile power-sharing government, with Mr Mugabe remaining Zimbabwe’s president.<\/p>\n
That unity government ended with the elections in July 2013.<\/p>\n
Mr Mugabe’s party won a huge majority in the vote, which Mr Tsvangirai dismissed as fraudulent.<\/p>\n
His defeat was a major setback for a man who for many years posed the only credible challenge to President Mugabe.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Credit: BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Zimbabwe’s opposition Movement for Democratic Change says it is suspending its leader Morgan Tsvangirai, amid deepening divisions in its ranks. A statement issued by the party after a meeting in Harare accused him of a “remarkable failure of leadership”. It also said he had deviated from the party’s democratic founding principles. Mr Tsvangirai lost a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":15257,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[38,14],"class_list":["post-15256","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-palaver-newspaper","tag-papa-owusu-ankomah"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15256","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15256"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15256\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/15257"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15256"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}