Zimbabwe’s main opposition movement, which risks a split over whether to contest next month’s controversial Senate polls, on Wednesday began crisis talks to close ranks, party vice-president Gibson Sibanda said.
Sibanda, who along with the majority of the senior members of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) voted in favour of contesting the November 26 polls for the newly created Senate, denied, however, that there are cracks in the party.
He said he was summoned to MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai’s house on Wednesday morning and the two agreed to call an emergency meeting of the MDC’s top officials. Tsvangirai cast a deciding vote on boycotting the elections.
”We discussed the crisis that the organisation is facing and after pointing up the issues, we have agreed to meet … this afternoon,” said Sibanda.
Answering reporters, Sibanda denied speculation that the six-year-old party is on the verge of splitting.
”We are still seeking a solution; there is no question [of splitting], we never said we were going to split and there are no signs of a split. It is simply that there are some differences in issues and the approach to those issues,” said Sibanda.
Speculation that the MDC has been riven by divisions and a power struggle gained momentum after party leaders last week issued contradictory statements over its participation in the Senate elections.
Party leader Tsvangirai announced a boycott, but hours later on Wednesday, MDC spokesperson Paul Themba Nyathi said the party’s supreme decision-making organ had voted to take part in the elections.
Sibanda accused Tsvangirai of ”wilfully violating the constitution of the MDC” by disregarding results from a vote to decide whether the opposition part should contest the Senate polls.
”The president himself uttered threats and allowed other office bearers to utter threats against a number of office bearers who had opposed his view that the MDC should not participate in the Senate elections,” Sibanda said in a statement.
”The president also issued disparaging statements against members of the national council who had voted in favour of participation.”
He said the opposition party would not allow ”one person or a group of persons” to violate its rules.
The MDC, which won nearly half of the contested parliamentary seats in the 2000 elections, decided to contest parliamentary elections earlier this year despite concerns they would not be fair.
But President Robert Mugabe’s ruling Zanu-PF won 109 out of 150 seats in Parliament in the March election, which was derided as a farce by the opposition party.
It also gained a crucial two-thirds majority that allowed it to make constitutional changes on its own — and in August pushed through the creation of a Senate.
Tsvangirai argues against contesting the Senate election, saying its creation is an ill-timed and expensive venture amid the food and economic crisis wracking the country. — Sapa-AFP