ARTHUR Mutambara will be kicked out of the MDC on Thursday when the party’s national council convenes in Harare to consider his open defiance of a directive to give up the Deputy Prime Minister’s position in favour of new leader, Welshman Ncube.

Mutambara, who pulled out of the race for the party’s leadership before the January congress, ended a week of silence on Monday when he declared he would not be standing down, adding that he did not recognise Ncube as the party’s leader.

The party had recommended that he takes over the lesser post of Regional Intergration Minister, currently held by Priscilla Misihairabwi. Misihairabwi would replace Ncube at Industry and International Trade under the arrangement.

The former NASA rocket scientist, who had been leader since 2006, told a press conference in Harare he stood by a dozen party members who boycotted the congress and filed a court petition challenging the validity of the convention.

But the party begins a process to pull the rug from under his feet on Tuesday, with Ncube having requested a meeting with President Robert Mugabe to discuss the situation.

The meeting is expected to follow the first cabinet session of 2011 which gets underway on Tuesday morning and is usually over before lunchtime.

But the party will play its trump card on Thursday when its top decision-making body outside congress sits to consider Mutambara’s insubordination.

A senior party source said: “The Global Political Agreement, which is now part of the constitution, clearly says that ‘there shall be two Deputy Prime Ministers, one from MDC-T and one from the MDC-M’.

“It is clear that the only way to ensure compliance with the party directive now is to exclude Mutambara from the party. It follows, therefore, that if the decision of the party is to expel him, he cannot stay on as a representative of the party.”

Nhlanhla Dube, the MDC’s national spokesman, gave the party's official line on Mutambara's last stand, claiming he was being ill-advised by forces bent on seeing to the destruction of the party.

“We congratulated Mutambara for his principled stand (handing over power) after seeing that his continued effort to hold onto power at congress had fallen flat on the ground. We took it that he was a man of honour who cherished and upheld the very important values of democracy,” said Dube.

He added: “However, with this new declaration that he will not give up power, we are tempted to believe that notion which claimed Mutambara was an MDC leader playing the chief striker’s position for Zanu PF and President Mugabe.”

Dube said it was surprising how Mutambara, after accepting there was a change in the party’s direction and leadership, would make a U-turn and claim not to recognise the same leader he gave a free run for the party's presidency.

“During congress, Mutambara agreed to step aside and allow Professor Ncube to take over the party leadership’s position. He handed over the reins on his own. We are amused now that he can turn around and claim that he will not recognise Ncube, and also claim that he was still the legitimate leader of our party,” Dube said.

“We suspect there could be a hidden hand in all this. We believe that Mutambara is not his own man. Somebody somewhere is making him pawn in a chess game,” he added.

“We are determined to implement, to the fullest, the resolutions of the congress we held in January and take the party to another level. They can create as many sideshows as they can, but that will not work. Mutambara’s press conference in Harare today was full of sound and fury but signified nothing to us.”