The MDC-T’s worst enemy

Goddard was best known for his “Harry and Louise” television advertising campaign which helped to kill off President Bill Clinton's proposed health care plan in 1993–1994 and Congressional health care reform proposals in 1994.

He also worked for President Jimmy Carter and helped to create the first ever political advertising campaign in Russia for President Boris Yeltsin.

Makone was now telling me that this formidable team had failed to raise funds for the MDC-T, or if it did, the money never got to the party.

Ironically party leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, said GAZ was formed without his knowledge. I found this unbelievable because of the wide publicity it got at its launch. One of the guest speakers was Grace Kwinje, a close ally of Tsvangirai.

But what struck me most at my meeting with Makone was her statement that the worst enemies of the MDC-T were the party treasurer and secretary-general.

She said it was these two that had been responsible for the splits within the party so far.

The party’s first secretary-general Welshman Ncube was responsible for the 2005 split and broke away with treasurer Fletcher Dulini-Ncube and others.

Tendai Biti, who replaced Ncube, left the party in 2014 together with treasurer Roy Bennett and his deputy Elton Mangoma. Bennett was the first to call for Tsvangirai to step down but he did not join Biti or Mangoma when they formed their own parties after leaving the MDC-T.

Makone insinuated that in both cases the secretary-general and the treasurer had left the party coffers empty.

Now I wondered, what was happening?

Was someone just trying to create trouble for Makone because reports said Tsvangirai came to her rescue?

Had the pattern changed because the story said the secretary-general’s office was not happy with her performance too?

Ironically, when I met Makone, she was in the company of secretary-general Douglas Mwonzora, who as a lawyer was defending the party in a High Court case in Bulawayo.

Maybe the only consolation is that the major splits so far have occurred just a few months after the elections, and not before the elections.

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