PRIME Minister Morgan Tsvangirai says his party will not take part in elections for Parliament and the Senate before 2013, but is ready -- if minimum conditions are met -- for a Presidential ballot to “deal with the question of illegitimacy associated with the farcial Presidential run-off election of June 2008”.

Tsvangirai met his MDC party’s national executive committee and national council in Harare on Thursday where a resolution was adopted that “the next election should be solely for the disputed Presidential election”, with parliamentary and council elections being held “in 2013 as prescribed in the Constitution”.

The MDC says the outcome of the 2008 parliamentary and senate vote was never in dispute, and elected representatives should be allowed to serve their full five-year terms.

MDC spokesman Nelson Chamisa said the party’s position – which is at odds with that of President Robert Mugabe’s Zanu PF party which insists on harmonised elections next year -- was first communicated to South African President Jacob Zuma when he visited Harare two weeks ago.

Zanu PF retreated to the eastern border town of Mutare on Thursday for its annual conference which is expected to endorse Mugabe’s demands for elections early next year to end a two-year power sharing agreement with his former opposition rivals which he describes as “awkward” and a “nonsense”.

Tsvangirai’s MDC party, which has announced its congress for May 30 next year, insists that Mugabe has no authority, under the terms of power sharing, to unilaterally call elections.

“Zanu PF nor its President do not have the right of unilaterally calling for the aforesaid Presidential election,” the MDC said in one of its resolutions on Thursday, relying on Article 23.1.b of the Global Political Agreement which compels Mugabe to consult coalition partners Tsvangirai and Deputy Prime Minister Arthur Mutambara in the exercise of his executive authority.

The MDC has also laid out minimum conditions under which it will participate in any election which include “adequate conditions for a free and fair elections; guarantees against violence and security of the person; proper monitoring and policing of the election including the question of SADC presence six months before and six months after the election, and guarantees with respect to the honouring of the peoples’ will, and urge that the same be put in place before the aforesaid elections.”

The MDC position is not likely to affect what Zanu PF resolves, as Mugabe has previously shown that he is prepared to take executive decisions without consulting Tsvangirai and Mutambara.