DOZENS of MDC-T supporters in Victoria Falls have
reportedly crossed the floor to Nelson Chamisa’s MDC Alliance.
The Matabeleland North party leadership yesterday claimed
the defectors were citing lack of direction in the former MDC vice-president
and ex-Deputy Prime Minister Thokozani Khupe-led party.
The supporters backed Khupe after the split of the MDC
following the death of its founding president, the late Morgan Tsvangirai, in
February last year.
MDC Alliance provincial organising secretary Goshen Zhou,
who is also Victoria Falls councillor for ward 11, yesterday confirmed the new
development.
“We have received a number of calls from MDC-T supporters
who want to defect from the party to MDC Alliance. They have expressed their desire to come
back,” he said.
“Some of them have approached the provincial leadership
begging to be allowed back into the party. We have requested that they put
their applications in writing and we are still waiting for their letters.”
A source close to the matter said the supporters were
planning to leave Khupe’s party en masse after being irked by the party’s “lack
of direction” and participating in the President Emmerson Mnangagwa-sponsored
dialogue, which they said would not bring any meaningful results.
“They said the dialogue by Mnangagwa and other small
parties has failed to change anything because the situation has been
deteriorating with each passing day. Their hope is in MDC Alliance, which they
view as a party which has the medicine to heal the ailing economy,” the source
said.
He said MDC-T structures were now in shambles in the
province.
“Many people are disgruntled with the direction the party
has taken which they said was a departure from the opposition politics of
wanting to bring food on the tables of the suffering masses. The leaders have
been accused of now waiting for crumbs from Mnangagwa’s table,” the source
added.
Khupe joined Mnangagwa’s dialogue with other leaders of
fringe opposition parties which participated in last year’s harmonised
elections, but Chamisa has boycotted the process. Newsday
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