Zimbabwe’s main opposition party edged closer to a split on Monday as crisis talks to resolve differences over taking part in controversial polls next month ended in a deadlock.
”We had a two-hour meeting to further discuss the crisis in the party, and the president and members of the management committee agreed to disagree,” said Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) deputy secretary general Gift Chimanikire.
”The president [Morgan Tsvangirai] refused to accept the national council resolution to participate in the Senate elections in violation of the party’s constitution and placed himself not only above the council, but also above the constitution,” he said.
Chimanikire said after Monday’s meeting of the opposition party’s six top-ranking officials that there are ”no prospects of another meeting” and those who have registered to contest the polls are going ahead.
He said Tsvangirai ”and his cabinet of unelected, self-seeking individuals” usurped the powers of the national council and sought to replace officials elected by the party congress.
Chimanikire also accused Tsvangirai and other officials of inciting ”hooligans through lies and misrepresentation” to harass members of a faction that voted in favour of contesting the Senate polls in the Southern African country.
Cracks in the opposition widened last week after 26 members defied Tsvangirai’s call to boycott next month’s elections to a new Upper House of Parliament, which critics say is aimed at tightening the ruling party’s stranglehold on the legislature.
Tsvangirai on Thursday said party officials had resolved ”to continue the dialogue with a view to finding an expeditious resolution of the dispute in the party”.
He said the MDC management committee also called on members to ”immediately refrain from all forms of threats, intimidation and violence against any official or member of the party related to the dispute over the Senate election”.
As simmering divisions in the MDC became apparent two weeks ago, party leaders issued contradictory statements over the party’s participation in the Senate elections.
Tsvangirai announced a boycott, but hours later party spokesperson Paul Themba Nyathi said the MDC’s supreme decision-making organ had voted to take part in the elections.
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. — Sapa-AFP