Zimbabwe’s main opposition political party, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), has been hijacked by corrupt opportunists driven mainly by personal greed, Business Day reported party Member of Parliament Roy Bennett saying in an article published on Monday.
He was recently released from eight months in prison for contempt of Parliament after shoving Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa.
The paper reported that there were reports of an intense political rivalry between two factions in the MDC — one said to be led by party leader Morgan Tsvangirai and the other by secretary-general Welshman Ncube.
Bennett said he and a growing number of MDC supporters were frustrated by the party’s lack of aggression towards the government of President Robert Mugabe.
Business Day reported Bennett saying that although Tsvangirai was a good leader, he had surrounded himself with a group of ”opportunists who ended up in senior positions within the … party and who are only interested in the own financial gain”.
”I believe they will be exposed and they will be removed and the right people, who represent the grassroots, will replace them.”
Bennett said that the MDC leadership should stand up for its followers, and put itself at risk rather than follow Mugabe’s agenda, the paper reported.
It further reported that Bennett’s comments came amid criticism that the MDC failed to capitalise on Mugabe’s ”Operation Restore Order” to rally Zimbabweans.
It reported Tsvangirai’s spokesperson, William Bango, saying that although Bennett’s views were welcome he might be out of touch after eight months in prison.
Bennett spoke to Business Day while in South Africa en route to
visit friends in Britain.
Meanwhile, a Zimbabwean hunger striker has been taken to a hospital near London after refusing food for 36 days to resist deportation, a doctor said on Sunday.
The 28-year-old teacher, Mqhubel Timbha, began the strike on June 2 in protest against the lifting of a ban on deportations to Zimbabwe and was followed in the strike by scores of his countrymen.
He was taken to an east London hospital where he had reportedly started taking food under medical supervision.
”He was sufficiently ill that, on the strength of my report, the Home Office accepted that he needed to be taken to hospital by ambulance,” said the doctor, Frank Arnold.
A second hunger striker, who has not been named, was also taken to hospital on Saturday, the man’s solicitor said.
The British government confirmed the pair were in hospital but said there were no concerns over their health. ”Two of the hunger strikers are currently receiving care in hospital. This is purely a precaution and there are no concerns over their health at all,” a Home Office spokesperson said.
The hunger strikers argue that they would be killed if they returned home after Britain in November 2004 lifted a ban that prevented asylum seekers from being deported to Zimbabwe. – Sapa-AFP