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(NEWZIMBABWE) Biti, Chamisa forced to deny feud

Biti, Chamisa forced to deny feud
29/01/2013 00:00:00
by Jeffrey Moyo

MDC-T secretary general Tendai Biti and the party’s organising secretary Nelson Chamisa have been forced to deny they were involved in a furious bust-up last week.

The MDC-T was concerned enough by the report in the Zimbabwe Independent last Friday to parade the two men at a press conference in Harare on Tuesday.

The party’s national spokesman Douglas Mwonzora told reporters: “The MDC totally dismisses as false reports that Biti and Chamisa clashed. Those are malicious reports meant to cause disharmony in the party.
“We know that the MDC is a target of malicious reporting.”

According to the Independent, the two men – both seen as future challengers for the party’s leadership – squared off at a recent meeting of the MDC-T’s standing committee, also known as the Top 12, over application forms for primary elections.
Chamisa was angry, the newspaper reported, that Biti dispatched application forms for aspiring MPs without his signature.

The two men “fiercely clashed” until the standing committee “resolved to withdraw the application forms and restart the whole process”, according to the Independent.
But Biti told Tuesday’s news conference that the claims were malicious.

“To say we are brothers is an understatement and to further write a story claiming that we clashed is malicious. We are a united and visionary organisation,” Biti insisted.
Chamisa described as “fiction” that the party was faction-ridden as he and Biti position themselves for the party leadership.

“I’m concerned about fictionalism of factionalism within the party. What appeared in one of the newspapers about me and Honourable Biti is totally fallacious as it was built on outright fiction,” said Chamisa.
He said as a party they had since approached their lawyers to force the Independent to retract the story.

“That which unites us is far more than that which may divide us. It can only be Zanu PF that throws that kind of fiction. Factionalism is the concept we know from next door, from Zanu PF,” Chamisa said.

Labels: MDC, NELSON CHAMISA, TENDAI BITI

posted by MrK @ 4:17 PM