MDC leaders meet to avert imminent split

MDC leaders meet to avert imminent split

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By Staff Reporter

LEADERS of Zimbabwe's main opposition party -- the Movement for Democraic Change (MDC) -- moved on Thursday to heal a rift over participation in next month's senate polls which has raised the spectre of a party split.

The opposition MDC has plunged into its deepest crisis since coming into being in 1999, due to a bitter dispute among its top leadership over whether to contest elections that critics say are merely aimed at tightening President Robert Mugabe's grip on power.

On Thursday MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai -- who wants a boycott of the November 26 poll -- said he had met his top five lieutenants who have opposed his stance and earlier this week sponsored the registration of candidates for 26 seats in the 66-strong senate.

"The management commitment of the MDC ... agreed ... to continue dialogue with a view to finding an expeditious resolution of the dispute in the party," Tsvangirai, who was flanked by his deputy Gibson Sibanda told a news conference.

The faction in favour of contesting argues that a boycott would only widen Zanu PF's political dominance at the expense of the opposition.

He said the MDC leadership had also agreed to desist from making "acrimonious comments on the dispute", and urged party members not to use threats, intimidation and violence against colleagues across the senate issue divide.

The MDC says Zanu PF has used rigging and violence to avert defeat in parliamentary and presidential elections in the last five years in the face of a worsening economic crisis, and Tsvangirai says taking part in the senate vote would lend credence to a flawed process.
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