MDC Alliance takes aim at Britain

Garikai Fadzi

HARARE – The MDC Alliance is spoiling for a fight with the UK embassy in Harare after accusing it of conniving with the ZANU PF government to ensure the July 30 elections are won by President Emmerson Mnangagwa and his party.

The British embassy, this week, successfully applied for the voters’ roll and received it while the main opposition, the MDC Alliance claims it is yet to receive it.

MDC Alliance principal Tendai Biti, while addressing supporters at Newlands Shopping Centre in Harare, accused the London representatives in Harare of forming an unholy alliance with President Mnangagwa.

“President Mnangagwa, l challenge you not to steal the election because there will be chaos in the country,” Biti declared.

“People will protest. Hungry people have nothing to lose. Your agenda with your colleagues at the British embassy to push for stability over democracy is actually creating instability in Zimbabwe.”

In a series of responses on micro-blogging, social media site, Twitter, the UK embassy in Zimbabwe had said that it followed normal channels to access the voters’ roll.

“We were not the first in the queue this morning. Others joined us. We were not the first to get the roll. We understand that some candidates are also now in possession of the roll,” read part of the tweet.

It added that it was not endorsing an election which was yet to be conducted.

“Today’s tweet has nothing to do with whitewashing the election or jumping to declare it free and fair. This is about being an observer, and saying what we see. We were given a voters’ roll by @ZECZim and others have been issued with a copy.”

Local civic society organisation, Election Resource Center, also confirmed receipt of the voters’ roll.

“ERC has successfully purchased a copy of the final voters’ roll,” it said on Twitter.

But ERC claimed ZEC hurriedly availed the roll.

“ERC is concerned that @ZECzim hurriedly publicized the final Voters’ Roll before affording stakeholders an opportunity to scrutinize the draft rolls that were created before the final roll. The opportunity to raise objections on the roll published for inspection was not given.”

ZEC officially availed the voters’ roll on Friday last week after the nomination court on Thursday.

The elections are set to be held on July 30 and several observers have been invited including the Commonwealth and the European Union.