'They want to destroy me'

2005-12-21 19:39

Harare - Zimbabwe's opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai has claimed a rival faction within his party made a pact with the ruling party to destroy him and splinter the opposition to President Robert Mugabe.

"We have irrefutable evidence that our erstwhile colleagues entered into a pact with Zanu-PF for a co-habitational political project," the leader of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) told diplomats on Tuesday.

Tsvangirai said infighting that split the MDC was fomented by Mugabe's Zimbabwe African National Union - Patriotic Front (Zanu-PF) to form what he described "as an expected post-MDC political dispensation", meaning his movement would be turned into a spent force.

This was to "to create a convenient opportunity and circumstances in which some in the leadership, including the MDC president, are to be harmed and even physically eliminated and the heinous crime blamed on intra-MDC conflict".

'Cheap shot'

"I have chosen to inform you about these ominous developments so that the international community is forewarned and that the subsequent responsibility for any bloodshed within the MDC should be placed firmly and squarely at the door of Zanu-PF and the Mugabe regime," Tsvangirai added.

On Wednesday, the rival faction refuted his claims of collaborating with Zanu-PF "as false and slanderous".

MDC spokesperson Paul Themba Nyati said: "Mr Tsvangirai will never produce evidence of collaboration between Zanu-PF and those who uphold the constitution of the MDC."

"His is a cheap shot that seeks to divert the attention from the fact that after the senate elections he has nothing to offer as a way of resolving the crisis in Zimbabwe."

Once a major political force challenging Mugabe's grip on power, the MDC became mired in infighting over Tsvangirai's decision to call a boycott of those November 26 elections.

Zanu-PF won 43 of the 50 contested seats, while the MDC picked up seven seats in the elections that saw a poor voter turnout.

- AFP