Police in Zimbabwe are hunting the attackers of a prominent white opposition lawmaker amid calls for Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) leader Morgan Tsvangirai to step down, reports said on Thursday.
Trudy Stevenson, the MDC legislator for Harare North, was attacked on Sunday in the Harare township of Mabvuku by a group of about 40 youths.
Stevenson said the youths belonged to a rival opposition faction led by Tsvangirai.
Stevenson (61) sustained a deep gash to the back of her head, broken arm bones and a fractured cheekbone in the attack, which has deeply shocked opposition supporters.
Four other MDC officials were injured in the incident. The police are still hunting the suspects, said the state-controlled Herald daily.
The MDC split late last year and Stevenson joined a faction led by former student activist Arthur Mutambara.
Tsvangirai has until now retained the support of most government opponents.
His grouping promised an independent inquiry into Sunday’s attack. But a spokesperson for Mutambara’s faction of the MDC said he doubted Tsvangirai and his followers had the ”commitment” to implement the findings of an inquiry.
”Tsvangirai must carry out thorough introspection and, if possible, he must quit politics because he has failed to defend the founding values of democracy,” Gabriel Chaibva told reporters.
The only other white legislator still serving in Zimbabwe’s Parliament, lawyer David Coltart, announced last month that he would not join Tsvangirai’s faction of the MDC because of his concerns over unchecked violent tendencies.
A spokesperson for President Robert Mugabe’s ruling Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (Zanu-PF) party, Nathan Shamuyarira, says the MDC is now showing ”its true colours as a violent party”.
Stevenson, a veteran opposition politician, said violence does not help the party’s cause.
”This is a wake-up call for those who are fighting for democracy that violence does not help us. I have been in politics for the last 15 years fighting against Zanu-PF, but I have never been harmed by the ruling party,” she said in comments carried by the Herald. — Sapa-dpa