Leaders of Zimbabwe's sole democratic opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), decided to expel its president over the weekend, deepening an already yawning internal split that has brought the party to the brink of insignificance.
It seemed unclear, however, whether the expulsion would stick or whether it would settle the struggle for control of the six-year-old movement, which has been torn by factional battles after a string of election defeats.
The president, Morgan Tsvangirai, was removed on Saturday by the disciplinary committee of the MDC, which is largely controlled by Tsvangirai's critics within the party. Tsvangirai's spokesman, William Bango, told news services that the expulsion was illegal and would be ignored.
An analyst of Zimbabwe politics for decades, Iden Wetherell, said in a telephone interview on Sunday evening that the two sides appeared to be jockeying for advantage in advance of a February party congress.
After nearly toppling Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe from power in elections early this decade, the MDC suffered punishing losses in elections this year for Zimbabwe's parliament -- in part, many outside election monitors said, because of voter fraud.
The MDC's leaders publicly fell out several months ago over whether to field a slate for last month's elections to the nation's newly reconstituted Senate. Tsvangirai had contended that the Senate elections were hopelessly rigged and should be boycotted, while the party's other senior leaders insisted that to sit out the elections would undermine the party's commitment to democratic change.
Privately, some senior members of the party say that they believe the MDC has been penetrated at high levels by Mugabe's omnipresent secret police and that the party is riven in part because of the government's success in sowing discord.
The party's debate about whether to take part in an election that might be rigged has descended into a bloodbath in recent months. Tsvangirai's critics have questioned what they call his increasingly undemocratic behavior, including what they say is his tolerance for attacks by youth gangs on some party members.
For his part, Tsvangirai has contended in recent days that a faction led by his party's second in command, Secretary-General Welshman Ncube, was plotting with Mugabe's supporters to assassinate him.
If Tsvangirai appeared on the defensive, Wetherell -- an editor of the weekly Zimbabwe Independent, one of the nation's few surviving newspapers not under state control -- said that he appeared to be successfully purging his critics within the MDC in advance of February's party congress.
Tsvangirai enjoys broad support among Zimbabwe's urban poor.
MINERAL DEPOSITS: The Pacific nation is looking for new foreign partners after its agreement with Canada’s Metals Co was terminated ‘mutually’ at the end of last year Pacific nation Kiribati says it is exploring a deep-sea mining partnership with China, dangling access to a vast patch of Pacific Ocean harboring coveted metals and minerals. Beijing has been ramping up efforts to court Pacific nations sitting on lucrative seafloor deposits of cobalt, nickel and copper — recently inking a cooperation deal with Cook Islands. Kiribati opened discussions with Chinese Ambassador Zhou Limin (周立民) after a longstanding agreement with leading deep-sea mining outfit The Metals Co fell through. “The talk provides an exciting opportunity to explore potential collaboration for the sustainable exploration of the deep-ocean resources in Kiribati,” the government said
The head of Shin Bet, Israel’s domestic intelligence agency, was sacked yesterday, days after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he no longer trusts him, and fallout from a report on the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack. “The Government unanimously approved Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s proposal to end ISA Director Ronen Bar’s term of office,” a statement said. He is to leave his post when his successor is appointed by April 10 at the latest, the statement said. Netanyahu on Sunday cited an “ongoing lack of trust” as the reason for moving to dismiss Bar, who joined the agency in 1993. Bar, meant to
Indonesia’s parliament yesterday amended a law to allow members of the military to hold more government roles, despite criticisms that it would expand the armed forces’ role in civilian affairs. The revision to the armed forces law, pushed mainly by Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto’s coalition, was aimed at expanding the military’s role beyond defense in a country long influenced by its armed forces. The amendment has sparked fears of a return to the era of former Indonesian president Suharto, who ex-general Prabowo once served and who used military figures to crack down on dissent. “Now it’s the time for us to ask the
The central Dutch city of Utrecht has installed a “fish doorbell” on a river lock that lets viewers of an online livestream alert authorities to fish being held up as they make their springtime migration to shallow spawning grounds. The idea is simple: An underwater camera at Utrecht’s Weerdsluis lock sends live footage to a Web site. When somebody watching the site sees a fish, they can click a button that sends a screenshot to organizers. When they see enough fish, they alert a water worker who opens the lock to let the fish swim through. Now in its fifth year, the
RSS