Opposition faction denies adopting new name

By Violet Gonda
9 January 2006

The saga continues in the MDC. The state controlled Chronicle newspaper reported this past weekend that the MDC pro-senate group had adopted a new name calling itself the Pro-Democracy Movement for Democratic Change (PDMDC). The newspaper said the announcement was made shortly after the group met with foreign diplomats on Friday, on the developments in the troubled party.

MDC official Paul Temba Nyathi categorically denied his camp had adopted a new name saying some sections of the media were deliberately distorting issues to confuse people. He said, “ You will have to be as dumb as 150 planks put one on top of the other to choose a name like that for yourself. Pro Democracy Movement For Democratic Change? And you expect any sensible person to give themselves an incoherent name like that?

Nyathi said there was no council that sat to debate the change of name claiming the reports were made to discredit those who support the party’s confusion.

But the official confirmed reports that Gibson Sibanda had been made acting President of the MDC by the pro-senate camp, saying Tsvangirai had been expelled pending his appeal at the national congress.

Another MDC leader Roy Bennett refuted these latest development saying Morgan Tsvangirai is still the democratically elected leader of the opposition party. He said, “The MDC was formed by people who elected them and until the people say who is going to be their leader nobody else can decide.”

The MDC has since 1999 posed the most serious threat to the Mugabe regime but is now rocked by divisions that has split it in two over the issue of participation in the controversial senate elections.

Party leaders and observers agree that the senate issue was the “straw that broke the camel’s back” as there had been many underlying issues simmering in the opposition camp over ways of confronting the regime and ways of dealing with internal problems such as violence within the party.