By NQOBANI NDLOVU
THE opposition MDC Alliance’s Bulawayo province has dismissed claims that its members had defected en masse to Zanu PF, accusing President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s party of concocting statistics as part of its 2023 poll rigging strategy.
MDC Alliance Bulawayo spokesperson Swithern Chirowodza yesterday said: “We believe that the claims of wholesale defection by MDC Alliance members to Zanu PF are part of the preparations to rig the 2023 elections and to then use such fallacious stories as plausible rationale for rigging.
“So yes, Zanu PF is perfectly entitled to have its own fantasies and to believe its own lies. There are just no MDC Alliance defections to Zanu PF.”
On Sunday, Zanu PF Bulawayo province claimed that over 50 former MDC Alliance members, mostly youth had defected to the ruling party. The new recruits were paraded during a meeting held at the party’s Davies Hall provincial offices.
The meeting was attended by, among others, the Zanu PF Bulawayo interim provincial chairperson Obert Msindo, youth league secretary for lands, agriculture and resettlement Cecilia Verenga and youth league chairperson Freedom Murechu.
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Zanu PF interim provincial deputy chairperson Mnothisi Nsingo yesterday said the defections were a confirmation that the ruling party’s recruitment drive was paying dividends.
“What that means is that people have realised that they have been following lies all along,” Nsingo said in an interview with Southern Eye.
“It is a sign that people are appreciating all that is being done under the leadership of our party, and obviously it shows that the party is growing.
“We are restructuring the party. We are busy on the ground creating new cells where we are saying anyone who is free can come and join Zanu PF, without any conditions.”
In Lupane, the Zanu PF district co-ordinating committee yesterday said it had also welcomed 22 new members who defected from the opposition, among them Kusile Rural District Council chief executive Mhlaseli Mpofu and Njabulo Sibanda who contested in the 2018 general elections in Lupane East on a National Patriotic Front ticket.
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