CHENGETAI ZVAUYA
The MDC-T leadership is set to meet this week to speed up the appointment of Douglas Mwonzora as the new leader of opposition in Parliament, Business Times can report.
Mwonzora was elected president of the MDC-T at an extraordinary congress held n the capital last month and will replace Thokozani Khupe whom he trounced at the polls.
The party is expected to inform and write to National Assembly speaker, Jacob Mudenda, of the decision to replace Khupe with Mwonzora, before Parliament resumes sitting next month.
Senior party members confirmed the changes.
“The party leadership of Mwonzora, Khupe, Morgan Komichi and Elias Mudzuri are set to meet this week and deliberate on the matter,” the MDC-T spokesperson Witness Dube told Business Times.
“I do not know what is going to happen because of the Covid-19 lockdown, but we will hear from our leader on the way forward.”
Komichi echoed Dube’s sentiments saying: “We are going to meet and discuss the matter, but we are having a challenge of the lockdown.
What I know is that we have to choose another leader of opposition in Parliament (to replace Thokozani Khupe who is still the official opposition leader in Parliament).
Contacted for comment, Justice Affairs minister Ziyambi Ziyambi told Business Times that government and ZANU-PF would not interfere in the running and administration of the opposition party but was ready to recognise Mwonzora as the leader of opposition in Parliament.
“Our constitution recognises the official leader of opposition in Parliament.
We are going to recognise Mwonzora as the opposition leader in Parliament if the party informs us in writing of their position.
We do not expect anyone from stopping us in recognising the opposition
party leaders in Parliament,” Ziyambi told Business Times.
“We know that they had Mudzuri as leader in the Senate and Khupe in the lower house with Khupe being the senior leader.
If they inform us that Mwonzora is now their leader in Parliament, we will recognise that.”
