Addressing thousands of party supporters at Mutasa DC yesterday, Chamisa warned his supporters not to be confused by the name and symbols on the ballot paper saying that his party had dumped the name which is being used by a rival Thokozani Khupe MDC faction in the election.
It is unclear what name Chamisa’s party will adopt after the election.
“Be careful during voting, there is now an MDC tsotsi (crook) which is using the MDC-T symbols. It now stands for MDC tsotsi… MDC thokoloshi…We will never use this name again,” Chamisa said.
Turning to the ongoing storm over postal ballots, Chamisa said the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (Zec) had completely lost credibility in delivering a free and fair election.
He said the MDC Alliance will be pushing for Zec’s suspension from conducting the elections.
“We failed to agree with Zec and we now want Zec to be excused and have another body to referee the election,” Chamisa said, adding he would take the grievance to regional and international bodies like (Southern Africa Development Committee) Sadc and African Union (AU).
He said it was embarrassing that the country was still bickering over electoral rights four decades after independence which should have brought full voting rights to Zimbabweans.
“What did (Josiah) Tongogara and (Herbert) Chitepo die for when we are still arguing over a vote? …it means someone slept on duty. It means Zanu PF only took over the position that was previously occupied by the Rhodesian Front without any reforms,” Chamisa charged.
He said rigging was going to be difficult for Zanu PF in this election as he was being alerted of any suspicious manoeuvres to subvert the electoral process.
Among the problems they are having with Zec is its alleged failure to order ZBC to report impartially.
“Our other problem is Zec’s failure to rein-in ZBC. We are concerned because it remains so partisan. It even acts on behalf of Zanu PF. We are concerned at the direction it is on. It’s a public broadcaster but reports like it belongs to Zanu PF,” Chamisa said, before threatening legal action on it to ensure that it reports impartially.
“We want to task, even taking them to court,” Chamisa said. Daily News.
