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Tsvangirai
axes MDC rebels over poll dispute
Angus
Shaw, Sapa-AP
November
14, 2005
http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/topstories.aspx?ID=BD4A112594
HARARE — Zimbabwean
opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai expelled 26 members of his party
yesterday for defying his call to boycott upcoming senate elections.
The move deepened
a rift that threatens to splinter the only party to have seriously
challenged President Robert Mugabe’s increasingly autocratic rule.
Tsvangirai’s
spokesman, William Bango, said a deadline expired on Saturday for
the 26 to withdraw from the November 26 poll for a new upper chamber
of parliament. He said the 26 would be running as independents.
Tsvangirai’s
deputy, Gibson Sibanda, party secretary-general Welshman Ncube and
his deputy, Gift Chimanikire, dispute the leader’s authority to
order a boycott. They point out that Tsvangirai was narrowly outvoted
in an internal ballot by the party’s national executive on October
12 and did not attend the November 5 meeting at which the deadline
for withdrawal was set.
Tsvangirai’s
Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) has lost three national elections
since he founded the labour-backed party in 1999 amid allegations
of vote rigging and intimidation.
Tsvangirai argues
that participation in this month’s poll will only lend credibility
to a flawed election process and an institution intended to bolster
Mugabe’s hold on parliament.
Critics within
the opposition hope to increase the party’s voice in the legislature
by participating in the poll.
They accuse
Tsvangirai of being dictatorial and breaching his own party’s constitution.
The independent
Standard newspaper reported yesterday that Tsvangirai’s opponents
were expected to boycott the MDC’s national convention in February,
effectively bringing about the collapse of the party.
It quoted opposition
officials as saying hopes for reconciliation between the two camps
had receded due to the intensity of the differences. Some officials
have said a breakaway party could be formed.
Sibanda and
Ncube were not immediately available for comment yesterday.
The new senate,
introduced by constitutional amendment earlier this year, includes
50 elected seats. Ten are reserved for traditional leaders and Mugabe
appoints six others.
In March, the
MDC captured just 41 of the 120 elected seats in parliament’s lower
house.
Mugabe appoints
30 seats in that chamber.
Meanwhile, the
Zimbabwe Congress of Trades Unions announced yesterday that 118
members arrested in Harare on Tuesday during countrywide protests
against mounting poverty were released after the attorney-general
concluded police did not have a strong case against them. The umbrella
group’s top leaders were among those detained. With Sapa-AFP
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