The MDC had already split once before, with violent consequences. In 2005 former secretary general Welshman Ncube led an internal rebellion to push out Tsvangirai.
Ncube’s party subsequently drained a few precious votes from the MDC, although it remains a marginal force in Zimbabwean politics.
– Succession battle –
This time the split could be far more serious, just as the MDC’s goal of creating a post-Mugabe Zimbabwe lies within reach now that the president has entered his 90s.
Mugabe has ruled the former Rhodesia first as prime minister than as president since bloodshed and talks brought an end to white minority rule and independence in 1980.
While Mugabe’s longevity has infuriated his political foes, a Zimbabwe without him at the helm is coming into sharper focus. A succession battle is raging within his ZANU-PF party.
As things stand, if Mugabe dies in office, or is removed, Vice President Joice Mujuru will serve out the balance of his five-year term, ruling until 2018.
Mujuru takes a less antagonistic stance than Mugabe toward foreign investors, and her stance appears to have come to the fore in the current government, while her supporters won nine of 10 provinces in recent party elections.
But she faces fierce competition from hard-line Justice Minister Emmerson Mnangagwa, who leads Zimbabwe’s powerful intelligence and security forces.
If either emerges at the head of a still unified ZANU-PF they will be a formidable electoral force in 2018, particularly if the opposition vote is split further.
There could conceivably be three MDCs on the ballot papers, sharing somewhere in the region of 40 percent of the votes.
All the MDC factions will be using the time between now and 2018 elections to garner support.
The MDC faction led by Biti has hinted at forming a coalition with other opposition parties, while Tsvangirai has been instead inviting all opposition groups to join him to fight ZANU-PF.
Tsvangirai has already announced that his faction will hold an early congress this year in October.
Political infighting could yet achieve what Mugabe never fully managed — turning Zimbabwe’s bold opposition into an electoral irrelevance.
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