Addressing an MDC-T campaign rally in Musikavanhu constituency at the weekend, the party’s shadow Chipinge West legislator, Sibonile Nyamudeza said they had received reports that Zanu PF was trying to manipulate the refugees to vote.
MDC-T yesterday claimed to have exposed a Zanu PF sinister plot to register all refugees at Tongogara Refugee Camp in Manicaland as potential voters and manipulate them to vote for the ruling party in next year’s elections.
“I have just received a report from my sources in the United Nations department claiming that Zanu PF wants to allow refugees from Democratic Republic of Congo and Somalia to register and vote for Zanu PF,” he said.
“I am told they are very serious, some of them are in the process of getting plots and villages would be set for them, the move is dangerous we would be defeated.”
Nyamudeza said the move was mooted when Vice-President Emmerson Mnangagwa toured the Tongogara Camp for the World Refugee Day in August.
MDC-T MP for Musikavanhu Prosper Mutseyami said: “We are still investigating; it’s highly-possible that it’s true. With Zanu PF, anything is possible, we are not going to sleep over the matter.”
A refugee, who commented on condition of anonymity, said there was a move to put them into villages and turn them into permanent villages.
MDC-T secretary for youth in Musikavanhu constituency, Levisone Mtetwa said Zanu PF was mainly targeting refugees from the Democratic Republic of Congo and Somalia.
MDC-T Manicaland provincial spokesperson, Trevor Saruwaka said there was nothing wrong in registering aliens, but claimed it was illegal for Zanu PF to register them for political expediency.
“My message to those refugees, who are being enticed to vote for Zanu PF because they are trying to facilitate their citizenship, we say no. Zanu PF has kept them as refugees for a long time and they should have given them the citizenship long time back,’’ he said.
But Zanu PF provincial youth chairman, Mubuso Chinguno being dismissed the claims as unfounded, accusing the MDC-T of always seeing shadows.
“They are failed politicians, they just want to create confusion. They fear being defeated, we are going to Mutasa Central and Musikavanhu and we are going to win all the constituencies in Manicaland,” he said.
