The opposition coalition the MDC Alliance has lost 90 local government seats before the July 30 harmonised elections after it failed to field candidates. MDC Alliance spokesperson Welshman Ncube confirmed the matter saying,
I cannot give you the figures off the top of my head, but we did not field candidates in just under a 100 wards. There are various reasons including individual candidates failing to provide up-to-date rate accounts and the confusion on the day of the nomination court as well as prior to it. In other areas, we just messed up. We have fielded candidates in all but around 90 council wards countrywide. It is actually an improvement on the 2013 elections whereas the MDC-T we could not have candidates in nearly 500 wards.
MDC representative to the EU, Grace Kwinjeh also said,
MDC Alliance managed to successfully field 209 out of 210 members of assembly. On councillors, out of 1958, the MDC alliance managed to field 1869 throughout the nation. Party leadership to deal with double candidates in some constituencies.
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