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The ruling ZANU-PF party of President Robert Mugabe suffered a setback in Matebeleland when 10 of its councillors from Bubi-Umguza District Council defected to the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), leaving ZANU-PF with only seven of the 18 councillors, news reports said.
According to the reports, another ZANU-PF councillor, William Mpofu, resigned from the party before the mass defections, leaving the council in the control of an opposition party for the first time since 1987.
One of the councillors said it had become impossible to work with Mpofu, who was defeated by an MDC member, Jacob Thabane, in the June parliamentary elections. “Mpofu has refused to work with some of us and since we are here to serve the people who elected us we have to follow them as they are now in the MDC,” the councillor said.
This article was produced by IRIN News while it was part of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Please send queries on copyright or liability to the UN. For more information: https://shop.un.org/rights-permissions