By Staff Reporter
Former MDC secretary-general Douglas Mwonzora on Tuesday escaped being manhandled by a whisker when party hooligans baying for his blood stormed a meeting chaired by Nelson Chamisa.
The suspected MDC hooligans temporarily disrupted the leadership’s meeting shouting obscenities and threatening to deal with Mwonzora with unspecified actions until Chamisa intervened asking the thugs to leave the party’s premises.
These shocking revelations were confirmed by both a shaken Mwonzora and the MDC, exposing a rift in the party’s leadership that could easily morph into a factional war.
A senior party official who attended the Tuesday meeting said had Chamisa not intervened and asked the thugs to leave before ordering MDC security personnel to escort Mwonzora after the meeting the former SG would have been “mincemeat”.
Mwonzora’s political future has been under the spotlight ever since he expressed his interest to contest against Chamisa at the party’s Gweru congress.
Some MDC officials have never forgiven Mwonzora and are still harboring grudges, with speculation that party bigwigs are fuelling the growing animosity to push him to the exit door.
MDC secretary-general Chalton Hwende has been fingered as one of the perpetrators fuelling the talk that the country’s biggest opposition is readying itself to show Mwonzora the exit door.
Hwende this week initiated a possible disciplinary hearing against Mwonzora when he issued a statement saying the party’s leadership was taking allegations by the youths against his predecessor very seriously.
Mwonzora is being accused of offering clandestine support to former Vice President Thokozani Khupe in her bid to annul the congress which elected Chamisa.
Mwonzora has had a love-hate relationship with some MDC bigwigs and youth assembly members since he expressed his interest to contest Chamisa at the party’s Gweru congress.
