Eddie Cross: MDC rallies
The MDC held one of its anniversary rallies in Bulawayo on Sunday. This morning the local State controlled daily has as its headlines "Residents Boycott Tsvangirai". Nothing could be further from the truth. No doubt Nelson Chamisa and William Bango will release photos later of the event but my own estimate is that we had a larger gathering at White City than thelast time we were there.
It is very difficult to estimate numbers on an open field but people were sitting perhaps 15 to 20 deep and standing about 5 to 10 deep at the back in a 180 radius crowd. The atmosphere was festive - a lot of humour and good spirited banter, some very clever heckling of certain speakers. As usual MT got a very strong response. I sat next to Grace Kwingeh - she had been in Europe for the past 4 years and it was her first rally in Bulawayo since coming home. She said she was astounded at the turnout.
It was especially so when you appreciate it publicized by word of mouth, there is no public transport and people had to sit in the open in October for 4 hours to hear the leadership. No one moved until it was all over.
MT had just come from the Eastern districts where three rallies were held and after Bulawayo he was on his way to the Midlands. A frantic schedule and I do not know how he keeps it up.
On another subject, we held a National Council meeting in the morning prior to the Rally and one of the main decisions was to suspend Timothy Mubhawu from all positions in the Party and to put his case the National Disciplinary Committee for consideration. He may well be expelled from the Party as a result. The reason for this strong action was the statement he made in Parliament on women and their status in society. This statement was completely at variance with Party policy and was viewed as a very serious breech of discipline on a key issue.
The decision was unanimous.
Eddie Cross
Zimbabwe, ,
It is very difficult to estimate numbers on an open field but people were sitting perhaps 15 to 20 deep and standing about 5 to 10 deep at the back in a 180 radius crowd. The atmosphere was festive - a lot of humour and good spirited banter, some very clever heckling of certain speakers. As usual MT got a very strong response. I sat next to Grace Kwingeh - she had been in Europe for the past 4 years and it was her first rally in Bulawayo since coming home. She said she was astounded at the turnout.
It was especially so when you appreciate it publicized by word of mouth, there is no public transport and people had to sit in the open in October for 4 hours to hear the leadership. No one moved until it was all over.
MT had just come from the Eastern districts where three rallies were held and after Bulawayo he was on his way to the Midlands. A frantic schedule and I do not know how he keeps it up.
On another subject, we held a National Council meeting in the morning prior to the Rally and one of the main decisions was to suspend Timothy Mubhawu from all positions in the Party and to put his case the National Disciplinary Committee for consideration. He may well be expelled from the Party as a result. The reason for this strong action was the statement he made in Parliament on women and their status in society. This statement was completely at variance with Party policy and was viewed as a very serious breech of discipline on a key issue.
The decision was unanimous.
Eddie Cross
Zimbabwe, ,
Labels: Life in Zimbabwe, Zimbabwe, Zimbabwe Crisis, Zimbabwe Legislation
