Dear Dr. Khupe,

The feud within the MDC family is a result of the perception by the Supreme Court that processes made to appoint people into positions, from the appointments of Advocate Chamisa and Senator Mudzuri as Deputy Presidents, and that of Advocate Chamisa first as Acting President, and then as President of the MDC were made ultra vires the Party’s constitution.

The remedy granted by the Court was for you, Dr. Thokozani Khupe, who was reinstated as Acting President, “to convene an Extra-Ordinary Congress, within a period of three months from the date of this order, in order to elect a new President”.

The two things that the court order required you to stick to were the instruction to to convene the Extra-Ordinary, and to observe the Party Constitution as it relates to the holding of an Extra Ordinary Congress. Everything else done outside the mandate provided to you by the Court is against the rule of law, hence should be dismissed with the contempt that it deserves.

Your calls and those by those in your faction that you respect the rule of law and values are but empty cheap talk that does not reflect your real intentions.

The recall of MDC Parliamentarians, the purported expulsion of the Nicodemus holding of whatsapp Council meetings to which those who you do not see eye to eye with from the MDC-T 2014 were not invited, the nocturnal invasion and capture of Harvest House using the police and the army which was captured on Camera which, according to the media, has been condemned by the United States Government and the European Union who are development partners with Government of Zimbabwe, are all acts that are not in line with the Supreme Court ruling and evidence of your failure to adhere to Constitutionalism and democratic values which you claim to uphold.

Whether these invidious acts are executed under your instruction, or are being executed by those you are working with, the blame lies squarely on you as you were the person tasked by the ruling to prepare for the Extra Ordinary Congress. If these acts of terror are being perpetuated by some of your colleagues, then you are now fully aware of the types of people you are dealing with.

If your colleagues are colluding with rogue elements of the army and the police force to forcibly evict people from a building without the prerequisite Court Order, that is a serious crime which a genuine Government should speak very strongly against, but the silence on the part of the Government concludes that what you are doing under the guise of implementing a Supreme Court Judgement and upholding constitutionalism are a joint operation by Zanu PF, Government of Zimbabwe and you and your team to weaken effective political opposition in order to continue with the suppression of the majority of the people of Zimbabwe.

As said before, this Supreme Court Judgement is only implementable with the full corporation of all stakeholders, all the persons who are affected by the Congress,but your move to eject some people from the 2014 structures from the offices through your action of last Friday is a big demonstration to the Supreme Court that you and the faction of the MDC-T you lead had some other motives other than implementing the Supreme Court ruling.

I will not go into the discussion about the right to use Harvest House or the eviction processes that had to be followed if your faction had sole rights over other members of the 2014 MDC-T structures, but there are people, for instance, like the 2014 Women Assembly Chair, Honorable Lynette Karinye who by virtue of her holding that position is still part of the people who are supposed to be part of the Extra-Ordinary Congress preparation. How does the Zimbabwe Republic Police justify blocking Hon Karinye out of the office and arresting her for that matter? All of this under your instruction?

A worrying aspect of the raid was that the Zimbabwe Republic Police could not take any action against the invading soldiers, but instead told MDC Alliance Secretary-General Honorable Hwende to talk to the soldiers. The Police are supposed to protect citizens during invasions, but how on earth would they tell the person whose space is being invaded to talk to the invader. This paints a very bad image of the Government, whose silence so far may indicate complicity.

For this Extra Ordinary Congress to succeed, you first of all need to make peace with those who are supposed to participate in the suggested Extra Ordinary Congress, those you have illegally and unconstitutionally recalled from Parliament and those you illegally evicted from or blocked from entering Harvest House, and then hold a Council meeting which is the sole body that invites people to Congress, but that may be hard to achieve given that you have created court cases that have to be resolved before Council meeting can take place.

Section 6.2.6 of the Constitution in question clearly states that A notice convening an Extra-Ordinary Congress shall be sent to all members entitled to attend and to each branch by the National Council at least one month before the date of the meeting, and you seem to be ruining the prospects of the Extra Ordinary Congress being held.

I will reiterate the fact that the Supreme Court judgement is designed to get the Extra Ordinary Congress to fail as it was issued during the Covid-19 shut down, with the Court fully aware of the meeting restrictions, and the World Health Organisation have already indicated that the prospects of eradicating the pandemic before the end of 2020 were low.

There is no room therefore for an extension of the period within which the Extra Ordinary Congress is held. You need to prepare your political life knowing that the Extra Ordinary Congress may not happen, mostly because you have already violated its provisions, and undoing the damage that you have already done will take a while.

Madam Dr. Khupe, you are pressing the self-destruction button, and you are failing, just as you failed in the 2018 elections. All your actions seem to prove that you are in politics for money as you have been shown on video saying during a meeting of the MDC in the United Kingdom a few years ago, and please prove this wrong.

Instead of implementing the Supreme Court Judgement, you started off with an attempt to divert the money due to the MDC Alliance, and you could probably have connived with Government in that attempt as Justice Minister Ziyambi Ziyambi was quoted in state media saying Government would give that money due to the MDC Alliance to you.

My parting to pieces of advice, Dr. Khupe are that you must reflect on what has happened since 31 March 2020 when the Supreme Court Judgement was passed, introspect and do the right thing; and that do not be misled by those of your colleagues who lie on camera in an interview with the Government controlled Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation that there was a smooth handover of Harvest House when your Harare Youth Chairperson publicly boasts that they have finally “consolidated power of control” of Harvest House.

Kennedy Kaitano writes in his own capacity.