Daggers are out for Home Affairs co-minister Theresa Makone and her husband Ian, with some senior members of the MDC-T party pushing for a vote of no confidence against the two over their alleged involvement in Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s marriage debacle.

" />

Daggers out for Theresa Makone

Comment & Analysis
BY CAIPHAS CHIMHETE  Daggers are out for Home Affairs co-minister Theresa Makone and her husband Ian, with some senior members of the MDC-T party pushing for a vote of no confidence against the two over their alleged involvement in Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s marriage debacle.

Sources in the party said senior MDC-T officials are urging the party’s provincial structures to pass a vote of no confidence against the two at the party’s national council meeting to be held in two week’s time.

Party insiders want Theresa, the MDC-T Women’s Assembly chairperson and Ian, Tsvangirai’s personal advisor, chucked out of the party for allegedly facilitating the Prime Minister’s “marriage” with Locadia Karimatsenga Tembo.

“We are mobilising all provinces that come 18 December, they must go,” said one senior MDC-T official. “The whole family must go because they have destroyed the MDC-T brand (in the form of Morgan Tsvangirai) that we have been building for the past 11 years.”

The sources said all the MDC-T provinces, except Mashonaland East, had provisionally agreed to push for a vote no confidence against the Makone family, which for the past few years controlled both the party’s political strings and Tsvangirai’s personal life.

Sources in the labour-based party said the Youth Assembly and Women’s Assembly members had planned a protest against the Makones yesterday at Dingumuzi Stadium in Plumtree, where Tsvangirai addressed a rally.

“It was stopped because that (protest) would have given the party’s detractors an opportunity to attack the party,” said another source. “This issue has to be handled very carefully because it has the potential of destroying the party because the Makones have vital information about the MDC-T, from all business sympathisers to financiers.”

Asked why Ian was also a target, the MDC-T sources accused him of failing to properly advise Tsvangirai, whose personal and political life largely depended on his counsel.

“There is a case of improper association here against Ian,” said another MDC-T official. “He also failed to advise the Prime Minister on a proper woman to associate with.”

MDC-T deputy spokesperson Thabita Khumalo said she was not aware of the exact date of the national executive meeting and was also not privy to the agenda of the meeting.

“Our agenda will come from the standing committee, which sits before the national executive,” said Khumalo, who could not be drawn into revealing if the Makone issue would be discussed.

“The executive committee of the MDC-T makes recommendations pertaining to any issue tabled at executive meetings. Most of the issues are not specific but come from the party’s structures, such as districts, provinces, youth and women’s assembly.”

But sources said the national executive will discuss the constitution-making process, the state of the party, its readiness for elections slated for next year or in 2013, among other issues.

In a statement last week, Tsvangirai conceded he had had a relationship with Locadia, but said the relationship was no longer feasible because “there is a greater and thicker plot around this issue, which has undermined my confidence in this relationship . . . As has been evidently demonstrated by these past well-orchestrated events, it would be inconceivable that a normal marriage relationship can be consummated.”

But the Tembo family has insisted their daughter remains customarily married to the Prime Minister. By the time of going to the press yesterday, Locadia was said to be still at Tsvangirai’s rural home performing traditional marriage rites.

The Makones, who at one time bankrolled the MDC-T when the party was facing financial problems, were also accused of leading the so-called Kitchen Cabinet, a loose coalition of members who controlled every aspect of the party.

The Home Affairs co-minister last year angered party colleagues when she tried to assist Zanu PF secretary for administration Didymus Mutasa to have his son Martin released from police custody when several MDC-T cadres were wallowing in jails on allegedly trumped-up charges.

She also courted the ire of party members when she elbowed out former Women’s Assembly chairperson Lucia Matibenga from her post in what some MDC-T activists said was not done according to procedure.

Efforts to get a comment from the Makones were fruitless as their numbers were not reachable.