Zimbabwe — After losing its majority in parliament to the opposition MDC, ZANU (PF) has embarked on a brutal campaign to regain lost seats by assassinating and framing crimes against the opposition legislators, ZimDaily has learnt.

 

An intelligence source revealed to ZimDaily resoultions of a meeting held by the Joint Operation Command (JOC) - intelligence, police, and army chiefs chaired by the Head of the Army Constantine Chiwenga.

The source told ZimDaily strategies are already in place to force MDC MPs out of office to facilitate by-elections which ZANU-PF will rig and win.

The revelations come hardly days after the newly elected MDC MP for Buhera South, Naison Nemadizwa, was abducted in broad daylight as he walked out of the High Court in Harare.

Nemadziwa had just won a legal challenge by the losing ZANU-PF candidate and War Veterans’ leader Joseph Chinotimba who masterminded the campaign of terror in the one-man run-off.

Eyewitnesses say Nemadziwa was bundled into the back of a waiting car and driven away after being involved in a heated argument with a group of six men one of them identified as an army colonel.

 

Another MDC MP, Mathias Mlambo, disappeared two weeks ago.

 

The ruling party's forces are also descending on family members of the MPs who have gone into hiding.

Five relatives of the MP for Zaka West, Festus Dumbu, are still missing after they were abducted earlier this week.

 

Nelson Chamisa, the MDC spokesman said this was a consistent, co-ordinated strategy.

“We are starting to see a pattern emerge,” he said. Ten opposition MPs have been detained over the past weeks and two are in police custody while others are out on bail.

 

They are being charged with a several offences linked to election violence.
 
The source also revealed another strategy - ZANU (PF) plans to buy off the Mutambara- led faction of the MDC into backing ZANU-PF in the formation ‘a government of national unity’.

 

The faction’s spokesman Gabriel Chaibva has since been dismissed for attending Mugabe's inauguration ceremony last Sunday.

The Mutambara faction, which has ten seats has agreed to work with the Tsvangirai formation in parliament to create a majority.