Aspiring MDC-T candidates’ nomination forms ‘hijacked’

This comes amid reports that hundreds of nomination forms did not get to the party’s national office for vetting.

The MDC-T recently dispatched nomination forms for aspiring candidates to file with the party’s national office ahead of primary elections.

Some aspiring candidates, who spoke to Chronicle, suspected that factionalism, which in the past has rocked the MDC-T in the Midlands Province, drove senior provincial members to pull out nomination forms of candidates they believed were aligned to rival factions.

“There is a fierce campaign for posts in the province and some are bragging during these campaigns that some of us will never contest while they claim that our nomination forms were not sent for vetting in Harare. We now fear that they could have sabotaged our nomination papers by pulling them out,” said one of the aspiring MP candidates, who declined to be named.

The aspiring MP said when he visited the party’s provincial offices to confirm whether his nomination forms were forwarded to Harare, he could not get an answer.

“What is surprising is that even officials at the party’s provincial office are not willing to avail the list of aspiring candidates arguing that the information was confidential. I went there intending to verify if my name was on the list that was sent to Harare, but they refused to give me the list arguing that it was confidential information,” said the aspiring MP.

An aspiring councillor in Zvishavane said he had stopped campaigning after being told by his rival, a senior party official, that his nomination form was not forwarded for vetting.

“I am now waiting for a shortlist of candidates that will have been confirmed by the national standing committee because some of us are trying to contest for the first time and information at hand is that our forms were pulled out,” said the aspiring councillor.

Contacted for comment, the party’s provincial elections director, Mr Obert Tachi Ncube, said all the nomination forms were sent to Harare for vetting.

“There is no way that we could have pulled out forms belonging to aspiring candidates. As the director of elections, I have the list of all the people who filed their nominations in the province and the list that was sent to Harare should correspond with my list. We will soon receive a shortlist of those candidates who would have qualified by meeting what is expected of a candidate. We accepted nomination forms even for those candidates, who returned after joining other parties and people should just wait for the shortlist instead of making noise,” he said.