President of the MDC Alliance and Zimbabwean Opposition leader Nelson Chamisa has said reports that rival MDC-T led by Senator Douglas Mwonzora has urged President Emmerson Mnangagwa to suspend by-elections is testimony that they were frightened over elections.
Zimbabwe is set to have by-elections to fill posts left vacant when MDC-T recalled councillors and legislators belonging to MDC Alliance arguing that they had ceased to represent the party that gave them the ticket into the 2018 elections.
The action is in line with a 2020 Supreme Court ruling on the MDC leadership crisis which ordered the party to restore its 2014 structures.
In a leaked 4-page document containing a number of demands Mwonzora made to the president, the suspension of “divisive by-elections” was listed. Reacting to the reports, MDC Alliance said:
Mwonzora is afraid of an election. He wants to prolong his illegitimate union with Zanu PF for as long as possible. He fears the day of reckoning when the people will speak out against his anti-people agenda.
MDC Alliance Vice President, Advocate Tendai Biti who is also the former Finance Minister criticised Mwonzora over the alleged proposal to have by-elections suspended.
“He has no shame, he has no limits, he has no elasticity no morality no decency. A brigand in a suit,” he said.
Mwonzora reportedly proposed a new dialogue platform between MDC-T and Zanu-PF to be known as the Parliamentary Dialogue Forum (PDF).
PDF would be made up of five Zanu-PF MPs, five MDC-T MPs, two chiefs and would have Zanu-PF and MDC-T representatives.
Mwonzora’s spokesperson Lloyd Damba however explained that he was unaware of where the document emanated from, insisting that the MDC-T leader was acting in the best interests of all Zimbabweans.