Cracks in Zimbabwe’s main opposition Movement for Democratic Changes (MDC) widened on Monday as more than two dozen members defied their leader’s call to boycott Senate polls.
MDC spokesperson Paul Themba Nyathi said 27 party members registered as candidates for the 50 contested seats on Monday when nominations courts sat across Zimbabwe to consider candidates for the November 26 Senate polls.
MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai earlier this month called for a boycott of the elections but received little support within his own party, fuelling speculation of a growing rift in the opposition.
The Senate is the newly created 66-member Upper House of Parliament, comprising 10 traditional chiefs, 50 elected senators and six people appointed by President Robert Mugabe.
Mugabe’s Zanu-PF has already won 19 of the 50 contested seats where its candidates stood unopposed, according to state television’s tally of most of the constituencies.
In Bulawayo and the Matabeleland North province, MDC members on Monday registered in nominations courts to contest all 10 Senate seats.
Eight more were accepted as candidates for seats in Harare and the northern Mashonaland West province.
Deep divisions emerged in the MDC two weeks ago after party leaders issued contradictory statements over the party’s participation in the senate elections.
Tsvangirai announced a boycott, but hours later Nyathi, the MDC’s spokesperson, said the party’s supreme decision-making organ had voted to take part in the elections.
”Those who have registered to contest are in compliance with the national council resolution to contest the polls,” Nyathi said.
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.
Zanu-PF won 109 out of 150 seats in Parliament in the March election, which was described 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.
MDC vice-president Gibson Sibanda denied speculation that the six-year-old party was 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’s simply that there is some differences in issues and the approach to those issues,” Sibanda told reporters. — Sapa-AFP