By Garikai Mafirakureva
Former MDC legislator for Zaka West and Masvingo provincial secretary for domestic affairs, Festus Dumbu, has taken aim at MDC Alliance leader Nelson Chamisa claiming he was flouting the party constitution.
Dumbu accused Chamisa and the leadership of the MDC Alliance of deliberately tearing the party constitution apart.
“Let me give you a brief background so that I can drive my point home,” he said in an interview with Sunday Southern Eye.
“The MDC was launched at Rufaro Stadium on the 11th of September 1999 after seriously noting the failure by Zanu PF to address the basic needs of Zimbabweans.
“Zanu PF had totally disempowered citizens, and breached the rule of law through state-sponsored violence and abuse of human rights.
“Zanu PF had also failed to follow both its own party constitution and the constitution of Zimbabwe — and the nation needed a perfect alternative.
“One of the most important tasks undertaken by the MDC included the drafting of the MDC constitution, which was adopted on January 29, 2000 at a properly constituted MDC inaugural congress held in Chitungwiza,” he said.
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The former MP said although the MDC constitution was reviewed periodically and amended at congresses, the main tenets of the party’s supreme law still held today.
He said it was the same document that saw the MDC holding a congress in 2006 at the City Sports Centre in Harare, another in 2011 at Barbourfields Stadium in Bulawayo, and the 2014 congress held at the City Sports Centre in Harare.
“One thing we should always remember as MDC is that we did not bury that constitution together with Morgan Tsvangirai in Buhera.
“A constitution is a document which is made for people who are cleverer than others.
“I am not disturbed at all by the Supreme Court judgement delivered on March 31, 2020.
“The judgement was simply reminding us, as MDC, of the need to uphold our own constitution.”
Dumbu who is being accused of having convened a meeting in Zaka with some the people that are fighting Chamisa, denied having done that, claiming he still remained a staunch Chamisa supporter.
He said his only problem with Chamisa was the issue of the constitution.
In a thinly-veiled attack on Chamisa and the MDC Alliance leadership, the vocal Dumbu concluded by saying that Chamisa knew and understood well the outcome of the Supreme Court judgement.
