Published: 22 June 2018

OPPOSITION MDC Alliance presidential candidate Nelson Chamisa has kept his disgruntled partners, who are demanding an urgent meeting to iron out differences relating to allocation of seats, on hold.

The alliance has been tottering on the brink of collapse, particularly in the wake of the chaos that rocked its candidate nomination process amid accusations that Chamisa's MDC-T party grabbed most seats initially allocated to his partners.

MDC Alliance spokesperson Welshman Ncube, whose party MDC was also affected, yesterday said an indaba was, indeed, in the offing to "thrash out a lot of issues".

"There are issues to be discussed and it is important that we meet. I have talked to all alliance partners and the need for a principals meeting is unequivocal. We should have met this week, but we could not because of a hectic schedule. We are most likely going to meet early next week," Ncube said.

"Principals want a frank conversation to take stock of what happened that should not have happened."

But Chamisa's spokesperson, Nkululeko Sibanda, said his boss did not "take kindly to demands".

"The language suggests that there is a demand for a meeting and the president (Chamisa) would regret use of such language. President Nelson Chamisa is a consensus builder and would have used better terms," Sibanda said.

He said Chamisa was heavily involved in campaigns "to try and win votes for all those running under the MDC Alliance ticket".

"He is sure that leaders of alliance partners are preparing to join in the fray and help win a resounding victory for the people of Zimbabwe. The president who is the leader of the alliance is currently out of Harare and will check all his incoming correspondence and respond appropriately," Sibanda said.

Ncube said the MDC-T's actions had left some alliance partners with no seat either in Parliament or at local authorities' level.

"It is important to note that some alliance partners will definitely not have representation both at Parliament and local authorities' level after their allocated seats were grabbed by the MDC-T, in particular," the former Industry minister, who leads the smaller MDC party, said.

"They want to know what they will get from the alliance going forward. These issues have to be thrashed out so we can focus on the campaign proper."
- newsday

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