Zanu-PF has made sensationally claims that the majority of high-ranking officials in the MDC Alliance-led by Nelson Chamisa are set to defect the biggest opposition and join the ruling party by the end of 2021.
Last week, a senior official in Chamisa’s camp Lilian Timevos, an ardent follower of the outspoken opposition leader, made news headlines when she crossed the floor and joined Zanu-PF.
Timevos was the MDC Alliance deputy treasurer and Senator for Zvishavane before she was last year recalled from Parliament after the MDC-T said the lawmaker was no longer part of the opposition party.
Another MDC-T senior official Blessing Chebundo has also left opposition politics and was last week with Timevos as the two were welcomed into Zanu-PF by President Emmerson Mnangagwa at the State House in Harare.
Chebundo is a former MP for Kwekwe Central and MDC secretary for local government. Last November, former MDC Masvingo Urban MP Tongai Matutu, was the first senior member of the opposition to desert the party and join Zanu-PF. He is reported to be undergoing reorientation at the Zanu-PF’s Herbert Chitepo School of Ideology.
At the weekend, an excited Zanu-PF communications director Tafadzwa Mugwadi confirmed that more senior MDC Alliance officials were also expected to dump Chamisa soon and join the former liberation movement. He predicted that two thirds of MDC Alliance were set to cross the floor by the end of 2021 have joined Zanu-PF.
“Staying positive, focused and clear! By end of year, we expect to have received two thirds of the MDC Alliance standing committee and NEC (national executive committee) members to Zanu-PF,” he said.
“You are all welcome. Remember only Zanu-PF is the permanent home to all. See you at HQ!”
However, the MDC Alliance secretary general, Charlton Hwende said the opposition party was a natural target of the ruling party’s attack as its candidate, Chamisa, won the 2018 presidential election against Zanu-PF’s nominee Emmerson Mnangagwa.
The MDC Alliance has not accepted Mnangagwa as the 2018 presidential winner accusing the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) of rigging the election in his favour.
“Zanu-PF has continued with its protracted war of attrition against the MDC Alliance and its leadership,” Hwende said.
“The regime is using our erstwhile colleagues who have left us and their moribund regime to attack and destablise the MDC Alliance through peddling malicious falsehoods and scurrilous allegations.
“For the record, those who have left the MDC Alliance have done so voluntarily without any undue pressure from any quarter. No one was pushed out of the MDC Alliance.“
Credit: New Zimbabwe
