Tsvangirai threatens 'political action'

Tsvangirai threatens 'political action'

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By Staff Reporters

EMBATTLED opposition Movement for Democratic Change leader, Morgan Tsvangirai will take "political action" against members of his party who defied his call for a boycott of the senatorial elections, his spokesman, William Bango said Tuesday.

As the stand-off in the beleaguered party continued unabated, members of a faction led by secretary general Professor Welshman Ncube immediately dismissed the threats as rantings which did not fit anywhere in their programme of campaigning for the senatorial polls.

Tsvangirai faced a major rebellion on Monday when 26 MDC candidates registered to participate in senate elections late next month in line with a resolution adopted at a national council meeting two weeks ago. Tsvangirai has rejected the resolution and urged his party members to boycott the elections -- plunging the six-year-old party into chaos.

In a telephone interview, Bango said Tsvangirai had already begun the process of taking "political action" against members of his party who defied his call and filed nomination papers to contest the elections scheduled for 26 November.

"That process ( of political action) has begun but Tsvangirai will not be axing anybody and there will be no blood involved.

"These are guys (who submitted their nomination papers) who are members of the party and he will interact with them politically. People talk to each other on the phone but don’t expect blood…there won’t be any," he said.

MDC spokesman, Paul Themba Nyathi said he would not waste time responding to threats from Bango because MDC candidates who filed their nomination papers were busy preparing for their campaigns for the polls which would begin in earnest.

"Those candidates were nominated in accordance with instructions of the national council. That process was done on Monday and its history. They (candidates) now have a task of convincing the electorate why they should vote for them.

"Voters need to be motivated to go out and vote so that they can compare the richness of our policies with those of our opponents. Threats from the presidential spokesman of the MDC don’t fit anywhere in that programme.

"Between now and the polling day, voters need to know what is their (Tsvangirai’s faction) programme for confronting the problems facing the people of Zimbabwe and what they are doing for the people of this country," he said.

Meanwhile, members of a faction of the MDC Harare province aligned to Tsvangirai on Tuesday threatened to disrupt campaigns by party candidates who succesfully filed their nomination papers on Monday.

In a statement, MDC Harare provincial secretary, Last Maengahama said: "Our structures will jealously guard their space from such invaders and have vowed to make it impossible for them to campaign against the people’s struggle for democracy in the city.

"As the leadership of the province, we shall refrain from counselling patience among the MDC supporters should their peace be disturbed by anyone under the guise of a campaign for a senatorial seat using the MDC as a springboard."
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