MDC-Alliance officials have been accused of forging
affidavits of legislators in a court application that has since been withdrawn
as the battle for control of the troubled opposition party takes another nasty
twist.
Branding the MDC-Alliance led by Mr Nelson Chamisa as a
“bunch of criminals”, MDC secretary-general Douglas Mwonzora said law
enforcement should step in and arrest the “crooks” masquerading as democrats.
This comes as the MDC led by its interim leader Thokozani
Khupe, has so far won control of the opposition movement after the Supreme
Court in March this year, ruled that Mr Chamisa’s ascendancy to the party
presidency was fraught with irregularities.
In its ruling, the Supreme Court rescinded Mr Chamisa’s
2018 succession of the late Morgan Tsvangirai and ordered an extraordinary
congress to redress the illegalities.
And in the ensuing battle for control of the troubled
opposition party, Dr Khupe and her allies who include Mr Mwonzora, have been
calling the shots, including recalling MPs who were refusing to abide by the
Supreme Court ruling.
In a fresh bid to stop the culling, the Chamisa camp
approached the High Court, but Mr Mwonzora claimed that their initial
application was premised on forgery and should be investigated.
“Their application was accompanied by forged affidavits.
The MPs were made to sign blank affidavits without anything. If you look at the
affidavits that were filed in the main original body and the tail end is where
the applicant signature is, it’s a photocopy that was forged. We also had
Members of Parliament who were disowning the affidavits,” said Mr Mwonzora.
“I raised that with some of the MDC-A people and they said
they had no idea; that is when we realised that the whole application had been
forged. I got in touch with a number of MPs and they professed ignorance of the
application. I think it was withdrawn specifically because of that,” said Mr
Mwonzora.
With Mr Chamisa losing control of the MPs in Parliament, Mr
Mwonzora claimed that the High Court application was designed to demonstrate
that the MDC A was still in control of legislators in parliament.
“They wanted to present that they still have 51 members of
Parliament. That is the impression they wanted to create because right now they
have less than 15 MPs sympathetic to them out of 111.
“They wanted to give an impression that MPs were behind
them and against us. It was simply political posturing, an awkward political
manoeuvring that confirms our earlier assertion that these people are
criminals. They are crooks who forged the succession. They try to forge papers
of ownership of Harvest House. They now have forged this application who ought
to be prosecuted,” said Mr Mwonzora.
MDC-A lawyer Mr Alec Muchadehama confirmed that they
withdrew the case, but on the grounds that it had been filed as an urgent
application.
“We withdrew the case because we saw that we could run
around issues of urgency. So we withdrew it and we will file it as an ordinary
application. However, I don’t think it is possible to forge someone’s
signature. As far as I know, it did not happen,” said Mr Muchadehama.
He, however, could not say how many people had signed the
affidavits that will be filed as an ordinary application at the High Court,
where legislators are challenging Dr Khupe’s legitimacy to recall them from
Parliament. Herald
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