MDC-A in forgery storm

MDC-ALLIANCE officials have been accused of forging affidavits of legislators in a court application that has since been withdrawn as the battle for control of the troubled opposition party takes another nasty twist.

Branding the MDC-Alliance led by Mr Nelson Chamisa as a “bunch of criminals”, MDC secretary-general Douglas Mwonzora said law enforcement should step in and arrest the “crooks” masquerading as democrats.

This comes as the MDC led by its interim leader Thokozani Khupe, has so far won control of the opposition movement after the Supreme Court in March this year, ruled that Mr Chamisa’s ascendancy to the party presidency was fraught with irregularities.

In its ruling, the Supreme Court rescinded Mr Chamisa’s 2018 succession of the late Morgan Tsvangirai and ordered an extraordinary congress to redress the illegalities.

And in the ensuing battle for control of the troubled opposition party, Dr Khupe and her allies who include Mr Mwonzora, have been calling the shots, including recalling MPs who were refusing to abide by the Supreme Court ruling.

In a fresh bid to stop the culling, the Chamisa camp approached the High Court, but Mr Mwonzora claimed that their initial application was premised on forgery and should be investigated.

“Their application was accompanied by forged affidavits. The MPs were made to sign blank affidavits without anything. If you look at the affidavits that were filed in the main original body and the tail end is where the applicant signature is, it’s a photocopy that was forged. We also had Members of Parliament who were disowning the affidavits,” said Mr Mwonzora.

“I raised that with some of the MDC-A people and they said they had no idea; that is when we realised that the whole application had been forged. I got in touch with a number of MPs and they professed ignorance of the application. I think it was withdrawn specifically because of that,” said Mr Mwonzora.

With Mr Chamisa losing control of the MPs in Parliament, Mr Mwonzora claimed that the High Court application was designed to demonstrate that the MDC A was still in control of legislators in parliament.

“They wanted to present that they still have 51 members of Parliament. That is the impression they wanted to create because right now they have less than 15 MPs sympathetic to them out of 111.

“They wanted to give an impression that MPs were behind them and against us. It was simply political posturing, an awkward political manoeuvring that confirms our earlier assertion that these people are criminals. They are crooks who forged the succession. They try to forge papers of ownership of Harvest House. They now have forged this application who ought to be prosecuted,” said Mr Mwonzora.

MDC-A lawyer Mr Alec Muchadehama confirmed that they withdrew the case, but on the grounds that it had been filed as an urgent application.

“We withdrew the case because we saw that we could run around issues of urgency. So we withdrew it and we will file it as an ordinary application. However, I don’t think it is possible to forge someone’s signature. As far as I know, it did not happen,” said Mr Muchadehama.

He, however, could not say how many people had signed the affidavits that will be filed as an ordinary application at the High Court, where legislators are challenging Dr Khupe’s legitimacy to recall them from Parliament.