A Bruising leadership wrangle has erupted in Apostolic Faith Mission in Zimbabwe with hawks in the church dragging the congregation’s head Asapher Madziyire to the High Court challenging his over stay in office.
Madziyire has been the president of the church for 12 years.
At least 13 senior officials will lead evidence in the High Court regarding Madziyire’s election in January and the March poll overseers, arguing that both polls were ultra vires the church’s constitution.
The church’s secretary for the Leaders’ Forum, Christopher Choto, told journalists at a press briefing in Harare Monday that the aggrieved church members have been patient for too long hence the decision to go to court.
He said the aggrieved congregates tried for to solve the issue internally for a long time but were left with nowhere to go since some of the church fathers also took part in the elections as “comeback overseers”.
“It has been 12 years since we started battling with the issue of new leadership and solving the issue has proved to be futile,” he said.
“The situation has got so scary, to such an extent that, for the first time, the ballot papers had serial numbers so it is a known fact ‘who voted for who’.
“Because of this some pastors have been facing unbearable intimidation and discrimination. There is a lot of divisions and politicking in church that is too high and too deep.
“We are doing this (going to court) so that we go back to principles of the church. There will be no split and getting out is not an option. We have to solve our issues.”
According to Choto, in each of AFM’s 20 provinces many pastors, deacons and deaconesses had come forth contesting the elections. Choto further alleged chapters 9 to13 of the church’s constitution had been violated.
The aggrieved church members’ lawyer, Zivanai Macharaga, said there were laid down procedures that were ignored during the elections.
According to the group’s statement, Madziyire was elected outside the works council of the church which was supposed to meet so that an electoral college would be constituted to vote for the president.
It is further alleged that Madziyire largely gathered his protégés on January 31 2015 for the vote, without calling for the works council as per constitutional requirements and claimed that those who voted on that day had given him the mandate to be president for the next three years.
