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faces massive defections from disgruntled aspirants who were blocked from contesting the primary elections.
The troubled party was supposed to conduct its primary elections starting Friday last week but made a U-turn at the eleventh hour, leaving structures in the dark of whether the primary elections would be held transparently.
This was the second time in a month that the primaries, that were initially slated for April 20, have been postponed.
The party insiders said the party national leadership was in a panic mode after sitting legislators threatened to frustrate the Constitutional Bill when it is introduced in Parliament this week if they were not confirmed.
Mashonaland East provincial chairperson Mr Piniel Denga said structures confirmed there was no clarity on when the primaries would be held.
“We have not been advised of when they (primaries) will be held. We are still waiting for guidance from the national leadership of when they will be held,” said Mr Denga at the weekend.
Added another source; “Our understanding is that the leadership is now afraid of conducting primary elections before Zanu-PF because a lot of sitting and aspiring legislators have threatened to defect if they do not make it. Some sitting MPs are threatening that they will not pass the Constitutional Bill if they are not confirmed, so the leadership has decided that we hold the primaries after the Bill has passed through Parliament.
“Aspiring legislators have also threatened to defect en-masse if the primaries are not conducted transparently.
“There are problems already because the leadership has warned aspiring MPs against de-campaigning sitting MPs which means that democracy is already stifled before the primaries.”
Another aspiring candidate in Mashonaland East province said there was confusion at Harvest House.
“There is so much confusion with the primaries because we had been told that they were going to be held on Friday but we are told it is the verification exercise which we are not even sure if it’s going to be transparent.
“Most of the people I have spoken to including those in the provincial leadership are expressing ignorance of whether the verification exercise has started.
“We are in the dark of what is going on. We are afraid that we may be caught off-guard.”
The situation was the same in Mashonaland West, where some councillors in Chinhoyi and Karoi said the signals the party’s national leadership was sending were now confusing the grass roots structures.
“I think someone is afraid that Zanu-PF might field much stronger candidates after we have made ours public. So the game now is like hide and seek. Dates continue to be changed every day and we suspect something is going wrong somewhere,” said an aspiring legislator in Chinhoyi who declined to be named.
Some MDC-T councillors in Karoi predicted a Zanu-PF win in the area, adding the party failed to protect its victory in the town and in Hurungwe West constituency held by Mr Severino Chambati
“The situation here demands that we work very hard.
“Look, we are like people marooned in an island.
“We are surrounded by Zanu-PF officials here and surely if we do not shape up we will be history,” said the official.
In Mashonaland Central there was little activity to indicate that primary elections were to be held with the only notable MDC-T presence being at the Magistrate’s offices on Friday where the party’s youth leader, Solomon Madzore was expected to answer to charges of insulting and undermining the authority of the President.
In Mt Darwin and Rushinga the situation was the same with no presence of party officials on the ground.
MDC-T national chairman Mr Lovemore Moyo, said the elections were a process, not a one day event, adding everything was going on well and the primaries were likely to be held on Saturday.
Reports from our bureaus in Beitbridge, Mutare and Bulawayo say the situations was the same and the structures on the ground were not sure of when the primaries were going to be held.
A fortnight ago MDC-T national organising secretary Mr Nelson Chamisa said the primaries were going to be held at the weekend.
Online Reporter