Prominent Zimbabwean opposition leader Nelson Chamisa has claimed that the recalls of several MDC Alliance (MDC-A) legislators by the MDC-T were a well-calculated move to give the ruling ZANU PF party a two-thirds majority in Parliament so that it could amend the Constitution.
The MDC Alliance was formed as a coalition of seven political parties, with the MDC-T being the largest party in the pact.
Following a Supreme Court ruling in March 2020 which nullified Chamisa’s succession of the late MDC-T president Morgan Tsvangirai in 2018, the youthful leader lost control of the party’s elected representatives, finances and headquarters.
Over 40 MPs and about 80 councillors have since been recalled by the MDC-T party led by Douglas Mwonzora and Lucia Matibenga of the People’s Democratic Party.
But Chamisa is of the view that President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s government is using the law to decimate his party. He tweeted:
The lawfare by ED executed through illegal recalls was intended to boost Zanu Pf’s numbers in parliament and secure a 2/3 majority which Zanu Pf did not have. ZEC’s ‘error’ in Chegutu is calculated and so too were our ‘sabotaged’ parliament election petitions!
Gift Konjana was the MDC-Alliance candidate for Chegutu West in the July 2018 harmonised elections while Dexter Nduna represented ZANU PF.
Konjana “won” the election but the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) made a clerical error, which it acknowledged under oath, in tallying the votes and declared Nduna the winner.
But last month the Supreme Court removed from the roll Konjana’s appeal saying he failed to comply with the law which required him to have the election petition to be heard within the prescribed three months.