Chamisa concedes Parly poll defeat

MDC-Alliance president Nelson Chamisa yesterday finally admitted that his party lost parliamentary elections to the ruling Zanu-PF.

He made the admission while addressing journalists in Harare last night.

Speaking before the announcement of the presidential results, Mr Chamisa however claimed that he had won the presidential elections and accused the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission of trying to manipulate the votes.

Surprisingly, MDC-Alliance only garnered 63 parliamentary seats to ZanuPF’s 145.

He only said his party heard the information through the radio and through V11, V23 and V24 forms.

“The outcome is there. We accepted the parliamentary election even with all its imperfections and they (Zanu-PF) must also accept the presidential election rather than to seek and manipulate that result so they give President Mnangagwa an edge either of run-off or to say that he has gone ahead of us but it’s clear that in all results across the country where President Mnangagwa was not winning his candidate will win (Zanu-PF).

“That is why there is a parliamentary majority of Zanu-PF especially in the rural areas but there are rural areas where our candidates will not win but we would win resoundingly and defeat President Mnangagwa resoundingly. So those results give us a popular vote. We have no doubt but we will wait for it to be announced by ZEC,” he said.

He once again disowned violent protesters whom he said were not from the MDC-Alliance.

He also said his party did not sanction Wednesday’s violent demonstrations.

“We always notify police before engaging in demonstrations,” he said.

Mr Chamisa could not reveal where he was during the demonstrations and only said he was out of town.

“I was very far away but some other time will tell you. I was out of town and tried to check but clearly it was not an organised programme. We do not do our programmes nicodemously and we do not do violence. We use peace. Violence is not part of our DNA,” he said.

He blamed the army for firing live bullets at the demonstrators and said they should be brought to book.