African Arguments

Top Menu

  • About Us
    • Our philosophy
  • Write for us
  • Contact us
  • Advertise
  • Newsletter
  • RSS feed
  • Donate
  • Fellowship

Main Menu

  • Home
  • Country
    • Central
      • Cameroon
      • Central African Republic
      • Chad
      • Congo-Brazzaville
      • Congo-Kinshasa
      • Equatorial Guinea
      • Gabon
    • East
      • Burundi
      • Comoros
      • Dijbouti
      • Eritrea
      • Ethiopia
      • Kenya
      • Rwanda
      • Seychelles
      • Somalia
      • Somaliland
      • South Sudan
      • Sudan
      • Tanzania
      • Uganda
      • Red Sea
    • North
      • Algeria
      • Egypt
      • Libya
      • Morocco
      • Tunisia
      • Western Sahara
    • Southern
      • Angola
      • Botswana
      • eSwatini
      • Lesotho
      • Madagascar
      • Malawi
      • Mauritius
      • Mozambique
      • Namibia
      • South Africa
      • Zambia
      • Zimbabwe
    • West
      • Benin
      • Burkina Faso
      • Cape Verde
      • Côte d’Ivoire
      • The Gambia
      • Ghana
      • Guinea
      • Guinea Bissau
      • Liberia
      • Mali
      • Mauritania
      • Niger
      • Nigeria
      • São Tomé and Príncipe
      • Senegal
      • Sierra Leone
      • Togo
  • Climate
  • Politics
    • Elections Map
  • Economy
  • Society
  • Culture
  • Specials
    • From the fellows
    • Radical Activism in Africa
    • On Food Security & COVID19
    • Think African [Podcast]
    • #EndSARS
    • Into Africa [Podcast]
    • Covid-19
    • Travelling While African
    • From the wit-hole countries…
    • Living in Translation
    • Africa Science Focus [Podcast]
    • Red Sea
    • Beautiful Game
  • Debating Ideas
  • About Us
    • Our philosophy
  • Write for us
  • Contact us
  • Advertise
  • Newsletter
  • RSS feed
  • Donate
  • Fellowship

logo

African Arguments

  • Home
  • Country
    • Central
      • Cameroon
      • Central African Republic
      • Chad
      • Congo-Brazzaville
      • Congo-Kinshasa
      • Equatorial Guinea
      • Gabon
    • East
      • Burundi
      • Comoros
      • Dijbouti
      • Eritrea
      • Ethiopia
      • Kenya
      • Rwanda
      • Seychelles
      • Somalia
      • Somaliland
      • South Sudan
      • Sudan
      • Tanzania
      • Uganda
      • Red Sea
    • North
      • Algeria
      • Egypt
      • Libya
      • Morocco
      • Tunisia
      • Western Sahara
    • Southern
      • Angola
      • Botswana
      • eSwatini
      • Lesotho
      • Madagascar
      • Malawi
      • Mauritius
      • Mozambique
      • Namibia
      • South Africa
      • Zambia
      • Zimbabwe
    • West
      • Benin
      • Burkina Faso
      • Cape Verde
      • Côte d’Ivoire
      • The Gambia
      • Ghana
      • Guinea
      • Guinea Bissau
      • Liberia
      • Mali
      • Mauritania
      • Niger
      • Nigeria
      • São Tomé and Príncipe
      • Senegal
      • Sierra Leone
      • Togo
  • Climate
  • Politics
    • Elections Map
  • Economy
  • Society
  • Culture
  • Specials
    • From the fellows
    • Radical Activism in Africa
    • On Food Security & COVID19
    • Think African [Podcast]
    • #EndSARS
    • Into Africa [Podcast]
    • Covid-19
    • Travelling While African
    • From the wit-hole countries…
    • Living in Translation
    • Africa Science Focus [Podcast]
    • Red Sea
    • Beautiful Game
  • Debating Ideas
Politics
Home›African Arguments›Politics›Tsvangirai vs Biti: battle for control of the MDC – By Simukai Tinhu

Tsvangirai vs Biti: battle for control of the MDC – By Simukai Tinhu

By Uncategorised
June 23, 2014
2250
0
Tsvangirai-and-Biti

Tendai Biti and Morgan Tsvangirai ; locked in a protracted battle for control of the MDC.

The ambush two months ago by the Secretary General of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), Tendai Biti, against the party’s strongman, Morgan Tsvangirai, has set the two long-time rivals up in bitter fight to land the party leadership. Having started in the apex of the party’s political power, the National Council, the battle has now diffused to other areas. The question is who will blink first?

In this battle, the two men and their political teams have adopted different strategies. On one hand, Tsvangirai has sought a short-term strategy that maximises the advantages that he enjoys over Biti. The most critical element of this is to continually pitch himself as the most popular MDC official with rank and file party members. Because of this stronger voter base, his aides argue, he is in a better position to take the party forward. Tsvangirai also controls the party machinery, including the militia. Previously, he has shown that he has the will, if it becomes necessary, to deploy militants in order to halt Biti’s ascendancy.

No less determined, on the other hand, Biti has adopted a studied long term strategy designed to continually undermine Tsvangirai’s authority, with the ultimate aim of breaking the Tsvangirai brand. This explains why the renewal team is increasingly using clichés such as ‘authoritarian’ or ‘power hungry’ when referring to the MDC leader. At the very least, Biti’s plan is to make his adversary look weak by comparison to the MDC political juggernaut which dominated opposition politics in the first 10 years of the 21st century.

To date, Tsvangirai has benefitted from a sympathetic local media to advance his case. His political mandarins have worked in tandem with loyal newspapers to dramatically project him as a man firmly in the driving seat. But, when one peers behind the curtain, one sees that the “˜renewal team’ of Biti is catching up in the race. Indeed, in some cases, Tsvangirai has found himself playing a desperate game of catch up.

For example, recently, the battle entered the legislative house. Pre-emptively, in late April 2014, Biti wrote to the speaker of parliament seeking to shield the nine legislators aligned to his faction from potential expulsion from the party. This provoked apoplexy among many in Tsvangirai’s team who within a few days of this move went on to write to the same speaker of parliament, Jacob Mudenda, seeking the ejection of Biti’s MPs.

Mudenda responded by referring the case to the courts. His argument was that the parliament had no authority over internal affairs of a political party. Interestingly, this did not stop both camps from claiming victory over each other. The spokesperson for Biti’s team, Jacob Mafume, told reporters that the speaker’s decision vindicated his group’s position that Tsvangirai and “his lot” had no right to recall MPs. Equally, strangely ecstatic, the party’s spokesman, Douglas Mwonzora, an ally of Tsvangirai, claimed that the ruling showed that Mudenda had refused to endorse Biti’s interpretation of the law.

However, in an apparent acknowledgement that Tsvangirai’s group is in a tricky situation if the case goes to court, another of his political underlings, Obert Gutu, who is a lawyer by profession and was deputy minister of Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs in the government of National Unity, advised his leader to desist from waging the battle against Biti in court. The argument that he has proffered for this is that battling it out in court would play right into ZANU-PF’s hands (the ruling party is known to control the court system). However, many believe that his reluctance to see this go to court stems from a genuine fear of losing the case. Many in Tsvangirai’s group believe that Biti, a leading lawyer in Zimbabwe and a shrewd tactician, has done his homework thoroughly and is relishing the prospect of a legal fight.

Unable to condemn Biti to political oblivion, Tsvangirai conjured up another plan. This time he sought the approval of party elders who provide ‘advice and wisdom to the national leadership of the party, including the national executive and national council’. The group is known as the Guardian Council. Interestingly, the chair of the Guardian Council, Sekai Holland, is also the interim president of Biti’s renewal team. In a statement following the meeting of this group in May, Holland distanced herself and the group of elders from Biti’s political team. This move was celebrated by many of Tsvangirai’s supporters and was supposed to leave him firmly in charge of the party.

But, as it turned out, it was only a short-term victory. A couple of days later, it emerged that Holland had been coerced into denouncing Biti. The elderly politician claimed that she was forced to read an altered statement under threats from ‘party thugs and vigilantes.’ Her original press statement, she added, had been substituted by the one authored by Mwonzora. Instead of strengthening Tsvangirai’s position, this incident escalated tensions, and appears to have been the high watermark in the continuing squabbling, with Biti recently calling Tsvangirai “˜worse than Mugabe’.

Strategies to strengthen their positions within the party have also involved courting Western diplomatic support. On this score, Tsvangirai appears to be losing as the West’s interest in his leadership has declined precipitously since he lost the 2013 elections. Indeed, the rise of Biti’s faction, coupled with violence and the rise of militants within the party, has seen Tsvangirai lose much of what made him historically attractive to western powers. Biti, however, is reported to have met with the European dignitaries who have been shunning Tsvangirai. It appears the man who not long ago survived on Western patronage, is blaming his former benefactors for the MDC’s internal troubles.

The reason Biti and Tsvangirai need support of Western countries is no secret: money from the US and EU has kept the MDC afloat since its formation. But whereas in the past the West financially supported Tsvangirai regardless of what he did or didn’t do to please them, today they appear reluctant to continue to throw money at a tarnished and repeatedly defeated horse. Without funds, Tsvangirai will struggle to undertake the extensive campaigning that has been instrumental in making him popular with party supporters. His adversary, however, seems to be doing well financially. Indeed, Biti recently admitted that his group does not have financial troubles, confirming suspicions that they are now the donors’ favourites.

The international media has also been shifting decisively against the old MDC establishment. In particular, Biti’s move to suspend and expel Tsvangirai and his faction received favourable reporting from some main British establishment media houses including the Daily Telegraph, The Guardian and BBC. Indeed, it’s been a while since we heard about Tsvangirai’s David and Goliath story and his fighting ZANU-PF’s stranglehold on Zimbabwe’s political landscape.

Despite some advances, Biti has entered the campaign with certain obvious handicaps. For example, the Secretary General cannot match Tsvangirai’s popular and imposing personality nor does he have the full weight of the opposition party administrative machinery at his disposal. For example, Tsvangirai frequently uses the MDC’s official spokesman to discredit his opponents.

But despite these weaknesses, and a continuing strong vocal performance from Tsvangirai’s elite supporters (who maintain that he is still the master of the MDC’s political universe), the past several weeks have witnessed the Biti political group mount a strong challenge on Tsvangirai’s control of the party.

Indeed, Biti’s team has since forced Tsvangirai to give in to one of their main demands for an early congress to elect a new leader. As the MDC’s two biggest beasts prepare to go head-to-head again Tsvangirai may well be running out of time to maintain a grip on his weakening authority.

Simukai Tinhu is a political analyst. @STinhu

Previous Article

Kenya’s Somalis: Caught Between Power and Profiling ...

Next Article

Waiting for the Blue Helmets: More gloom ...

Uncategorised

Leave a reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

  • Politics

    From London to Luanda: review of Daniel Metcalfe’s Blue Dahlia, Black Gold – By Claudia Gastrow

  • NigeriaPolitics

    What does the death of IS leader al-Baghdadi mean for Boko Haram?

  • Madagascar is set to hold presidential elections on 7 November, with a possible run-off on 19 December. Credit: Rod Waddington.
    MadagascarPolitics

    Madagascar elections: 36 candidates, 4 (ex-)presidents, and a lot of money

Subscribe to our newsletter

Click here to subscribe to our free weekly newsletter and never miss a thing!

  • 81.7K+
    Followers

Find us on Facebook

Interactive Elections Map

Keep up to date with all the African elections.

Recent Posts

  • Afrobeats: The birth of Afro-Adura
  • Sudan: How the generals disappeared the people on the way to the economy
  • Is a Peaceful Somalia Possible? Alternatives to Total War on Al-Shabaab
  • “Economic bondage”: E Africa farmers worry over what GMOs might mean
  • The unexpected success of Somalia’s new fight against Al Shabaab

Editor’s Picks

CultureEditor's PicksEritreaSociety

Why are there no Black riders in the Tour de France?

The answer is not a lack of talent, as Eritrea’s long history of producing worldclass cyclists attests. On the 17 May, Eritrea made headlines for all the right reasons. Sprinting ...
  • Earlier this month, think tanks from around Africa discussed challenges at the Africa Think Tank conference, organised by the OCP Policy Center and Think Tank and Civil Societies Program of the University of Pennsylvania. Credit: OCP.

    “Do we really need them?” Four big challenges facing African think tanks

    By James Wan
    May 29, 2018
  • Students wait for daladala after school at Kawe bus stand in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Credit: Mweha Msemo.

    “They wish we didn’t exist”: Tanzania school goers speak of transport woes

    By Mweha Msemo
    May 4, 2023
  • Burna Boy claims to be a politically conscious “African Giant.” He’s not.

    By Wilfred Okiche
    December 17, 2021
  • President Hakainde Hichilema of Zambia meeting supporters. Credit: Hakainde Hichilema/Facebook.

    Zambia’s democracy is still under attack

    By Sishuwa Sishuwa
    March 22, 2022

Brought to you by


Creative Commons

Creative Commons Licence
Articles on African Arguments are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
  • Cookies
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms & Conditions
© Copyright African Arguments 2020
By continuing to browse this site, you agree to our use of cookies.