MDC secretary general, Douglas Mwonzora has revealed that he had called off the national council meeting that elected Nelson Chamisa as act...
MDC secretary general, Douglas Mwonzora has revealed that
he had called off the national council meeting that elected Nelson Chamisa as
acting leader.
“It is important to note that when the president died, we
called off the national council meeting and I personally did that because as
the secretary-general, I am responsible for convening that.
But some leaders decided to disobey that and during the
time of the national council meeting, a question arose as to whether we should
appoint someone as acting president.
I had two fundamental problems to that as the administrator
of the party. The first one was that other interested people were not there,
not because of choice, they were involved in funeral arrangements of the former
prime minister.
It was only fair that everybody be there when such an
important question is resolved.
Secondly, the issue of whether the constitution allowed it.
I knew the constitution did not allow the election of a leader by the national
council, a leader who is elected outside congress; it can’t be done by the
national council.
Unfortunately for me, when we wanted to raise those issues,
I was not allowed to speak and as a result I left.
The meeting was chaired by the deputy national chairman,
Morgen Komichi, so I was unable to speak, I was not allowed to speak and I
left.
And now we have the resolution of the national council that
has plunged the party into more turmoil. But what I then exhorted all the
leaders to do was to shelve that issue so that we concentrate on the funeral.
There have been clashes in the cockpit between the three
vice-presidents and that does not augur well for our party and for the project
that we want to build. So the party has been in a state that is very unhealthy
and what we want to avoid is a split.
This is a democratic party; it has a constitution and a
tradition. It is my intention to preserve the constitutionalism in the party.
We must go back to the constitution and it says once the president is late, we
must have an extraordinary congress within one year for the election of the
leader.
Some have interpreted that an acting president in an
election can act beyond the election date, that is wrong because when the MDC
chooses its election candidate, it actually holds a congress and that primary
election is called a congress.
He was speaking to the Standard.
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