BY RICHARD MUPONDE
DOZENS of MDC-T supporters in Victoria Falls have reportedly crossed the floor to Nelson Chamisa’s MDC Alliance.
The Matabeleland North party leadership yesterday claimed the defectors were citing lack of direction in the former MDC vice-president and ex-Deputy Prime Minister Thokozani Khupe-led party.
The supporters backed Khupe after the split of the MDC following the death of its founding president, the late Morgan Tsvangirai, in February last year.
MDC Alliance provincial organising secretary Goshen Zhou, who is also Victoria Falls councillor for ward 11, yesterday confirmed the new development.
“We have received a number of calls from MDC-T supporters who want to defect from the party to MDC Alliance. They have expressed their desire to come back,” he said.
“Some of them have approached the provincial leadership begging to be allowed back into the party. We have requested that they put their applications in writing and we are still waiting for their letters.”
A source close to the matter said the supporters were planning to leave Khupe’s party en masse after being irked by the party’s “lack of direction” and participating in the President Emmerson Mnangagwa-sponsored dialogue, which they said would not bring any meaningful results.
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“They said the dialogue by Mnangagwa and other small parties has failed to change anything because the situation has been deteriorating with each passing day. Their hope is in MDC Alliance, which they view as a party which has the medicine to heal the ailing economy,” the source said.
He said MDC-T structures were now in shambles in the province.
“Many people are disgruntled with the direction the party has taken which they said was a departure from the opposition politics of wanting to bring food on the tables of the suffering masses. The leaders have been accused of now waiting for crumbs from Mnangagwa’s table,” the source added.
Khupe joined Mnangagwa’s dialogue with other leaders of fringe opposition parties which participated in last year’s harmonised elections, but Chamisa has boycotted the process.
Chamisa has demanded to have a one-on-one dialogue with Mnangagwa to solve the issue of legitimacy and the country’s economic problems.
MDC-T national chairman Abednico Bhebhe described the claims are blatant lies “which must not be listened to”.
“The first mistake, have they shown you the letters of those people whom they are claiming to be joining MDC Alliance? Two, who are those people? Three, they must be celebrating that Zanu PF, the party that has caused us all problems are joining them, not another opposition party,” he said.
“In all this, you can prove that they are just lying.”
