Elders Push For Chamisa, Khupe Talks

The MDC factions have inveigled the party’s “Elders” to help iron out their differences as they seek to enforce a recent Supreme Court ruling which ordered them to hold an extraordinary congress within three months.

The secretary-general of the MDC Alliance’s Council of Elders, Pearson Mungofa told Business Times that their counterparts in MDC-T led by James Makore and Cephas Makuyana have approached them to end the impasse. He said:

We have been approached by the Elders from the Khupe faction proposing that we should talk to our principal Nelson Chamisa and that we need to find a mediator to chair the dialogue between him and Khupe.

We as the elders of party are ready to take up the matter to our principal Chamisa but we need a guarantee from the Khupe faction that they are not being sent by Zanu PF to further weaken our party.

Mungofa revealed that Eric Matinenga, a lawyer and former cabinet minister who once worked with the late MDC founding president Morgan Tsvangirai, Thokozani Khupe and Chamisa during the inclusive government in the period 2009 to 2013, is being considered to mediate between the factions.

Mungofa claimed that last year Chamisa asked the elders to mediate but was given a cold shoulder by Khupe.

Makuyana also told Business Times that dialogue and mediation were needed in the MDC to end the factionalism.

More: Business Times