Movement for Democratic Change-Tsvangirai leader Thokozani Khupe has challenged all 23 presidential candidates contesting next week’s elections to declare their assets as this will show who has worked both privately and publicly with the Mugabe and Mnangagwa administrations but her target seemed to be MDC Alliance leader Nelson Chamisa.
She posed the challenge in an interview with Newsday when she was asked what her reaction was to allegations that she was paid by the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front to split the vote.
Khupe, a former Deputy Prime Minister who served as the MDC-T’s elected vice-president from 2006, refused to recognise Nelson Chamisa as president of the party after Morgan Tsvangirai’s death in February.
She went on to register as leader of the MDC-T forcing Chamisa to contest the elections under the MDC Alliance.
“I have not had any relationship with ZANU-PF led by Robert Mugabe or the one led by Emmerson Mnangagwa,” she responded.
“I am not the one who is in alliance with former ZANU-PF members. My party does not have ZANU-PF or former ZANU-PF members as candidates.
“Ironically, despite the legal position that states that the party should have access to the political finance money as defined in the Political Finances Act is the MDC “T”, the current government for reasons best known to them, even after I had written to them to await resolution of the contestation of leadership, decided to allocate that money to a group that now call themselves by another name.
“Secondly, another organ of the state led by ZANU-PF, which is Parliament, against legal advice from my lawyer and me, took an unprecedented decision to accept a letter of recall purportedly written by people with no locus standi.
“They proceeded even after the first High Court ruling by Justice Francis Bere to appoint an illegitimate person as leader of the opposition.
“Therefore, if there is anyone who has been favoured by the current government, it is not me.”
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