MDC intra-party violence over senate poll

The rift in the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) over participating in next month's senate election has degenerated into violence, according to the official Herald newspaper. It reported that five men loyal to MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai had appeared in court on Wednesday for allegedly attacking three senate candidates who defied Tsvangirai's order to boycott the poll. The state claimed that on Monday the men had assembled illegally at the nomination court in Gweru, in the Midlands province, with the intention of preventing any MDC candidates from filing papers. They allegedly attacked three 'rebel' MDC candidates who had just filed papers and were leaving the nomination court. Tsvangirai's critics have pointed to an MDC national council vote in favour of participating in the 26 November senate election. Their opponents stress that the party had earlier agreed to boycott the election, because the creation of an upper house was a waste of taxpayers' money and was likely to be stacked with ruling party supporters. John Makumbe, a senior political science lecturer at the University of Zimbabwe, told IRIN that Tsvangirai and his supporters, including the youth and women's wings of the party, were preparing a campaign to boycott polling stations, which could result in a "very contradictory situation that's going to be quite confusing [for MDC supporters] ... the potential for violence is everywhere," he warned. The pro-senate faction has made allegations of intimidation in the battle for control of MDC offices around the country. MDC officials aligned with Tsvangirai have allegedly taken charge of affairs at the party's national headquarters in the capital, Harare. The pro-poll faction aligned to MDC vice-president Gibson Sibanda and secretary-general Welshman Ncube appeared to have gained control of the offices in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe's second city, and the provinces of Matabeleland North and Matabeleland South. When Sibanda and Ncube held a press conference in Harare last week they used a five-star hotel instead of the party's headquarters. Pro-election MDC spokesman Paul Themba Nyathi said: "There is an unfortunate culture of violence emerging in the MDC. I have been informed that some rowdy youths were denouncing us, threatening us with death for disagreeing with Tsvangirai. Those that have not been to the party offices are afraid of being beaten up by some extremist elements in the MDC." But Tsvangirai insisted that no such instruction existed. "Every member of the MDC is free to visit the party headquarters, unless they have other reasons for not coming which I am not aware of," he said, and added that he intended visiting party offices in the Matabeleland region "in due course". Matabeleland has voted overwhelmingly for the MDC since its formation in 1999, and pro-senate leaders have stressed that by boycotting the election they would allow the ruling ZANU-PF party a toehold in the region. The Matabeleland region was the scene of a vicious counter-insurgency campaign by the ZANU-PF government against armed dissidents in the 1980s, in which an estimated 20,000 civilians died.