Zanu-PF, MDC to share $200 million

Zimbabwe's two main political parties, Zanu-PF and the MDC Alliance, are the only two groups that won enough Parliamentary seats to qualify to share the $200 million budgeted this year under the Political Parties (Finance) Act, in proportion to their vote, giving Zanu-PF just over 70 percent of the total.

So Zanu-PF will pocket just over $140 million while the MDC-Alliance will get about $60 million for its almost 30 percent votes won.

The State funding of parties that obtain reasonable support in elections, at least five percent of the votes cast, was designed to ensure that they can function properly and are not tempted to look for dubious or foreign sources of finance.

In a general notice published in the Government Gazette yesterday, Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ziyambi Ziyambi announced that $200 million had been allocated this year and that the two parties had qualified.

So Zanu-PF gets $140 060 000 for its 70,03 percent of the qualifying votes and the MDC-A $59 940 000 for its 29,97 percent of the total qualifying votes cast. Votes for the parties that failed to meet the 5 percent threshold were substracted before the division was made between the larger parties.