MDC-T councillors sabotage party, faces punishment

MDC-T has vowed to take action against party councillors who allegedly took bribes to vote for Zanu-PF mayors.

MDC lost mayoral seats to Zanu-PF in councils dominated by the former, with reports attributing the loss to defiance by councillors to follow orders.

Luke Tamborinyoka, president Morgan Tsvangirai's spokesperson, said the greedy councillors were going to be punished for their actions.

"We understand that there were huge bags of cash from Zanu-PF in Mutare and Victoria falls," he said.

"We are taking the issue seriously and taking disciplinary action against councillors who thought money was bigger than party leadership."

MDC's bid to field non-councillors to be voted for the mayoral positions hit a brickwall after the High Court last week threw out an urgent chamber application that sought to compel the government to allow the party's preferred candidates to be appointed mayors.

There are 92 rural and urban councils countrywide comprising 1 958 wards, of which 1 496 were won by Zanu-PF, while 442 went to the MDC.

In Kwekwe, were the 14 wards are evenly split between MDC and Zanu-PF, a Zanu-PF candidate Tatenda Madzoke scooped nine votes against MDC's five indicating that two councillors, who were elected on an MDC ticket, voted for the revolutionary party.

Zanu-PF mayoral candidates also won in Redcliff and Victoria Falls after MDC councillors were allegedly compromised with cash to vote for Zanu-PF candidates Freddy Kapuya and Sifiso Mpofu respectively.

In Redcliff, out of the nine wards, only two are held by Zanu-PF while MDC has seven councillors and there are already calls for a probe.

In Victoria Falls, where Zanu-PF only garnered three wards out of 10, Zanu-PF's mayoral candidate got six votes against MDC's candidate Margaret Valley who got four votes.