MDC-T USA secretary, Andrew Chaponda has said party president Douglas Mwonzora is a danger to the rule of law and cannot be entrusted with leadership after he appointed Elias Mudzuri deputy president in violation of the party constitution.
Chaponda challenged the MDC-T national standing committee and national council members to stand up against Mwonzora in defence of the constitution. Said Chaponda:
No one in the MDC-T has the legal powers to appoint a vice president outside the constitution which is a congress.
… Douglas Mwonzora, who is a lawyer, whose close advisors are also lawyers and has the singular distinction of co-chairing COPAC (Constitution Parliamentary Committee) that wrote the current constitution of Zimbabwe, he cannot be ignorant of the law and constitution of the MDC-T.
The question is why is he disregarding the Supreme Court’s steaming hot judgment? It boggles the mind why Engineer Elias Mudzuri would allow himself to be duped, not once but twice to break the party constitution.
Mwonzora appointed Mudzuri as second vice president and former acting president Thokozani Khupe as first vice president soon after the party’s extraordinary congress held last month.
In March the Supreme Court ruled that the earlier appointment of Mudzuri and Nelson Chamisa in 2016 as MDC-T co-vice presidents by the then president, Morgan Tsvangirai was done in violation of the constitution.
However, by handpicking Mudzuri for the MDC-T vice presidency, Mwonzora repeated Tsvangirai’s error.