‘MDC T Founding Member Also Senior Official, ‘Misheck Gapare; Ditches party For Zanu PF’,

A Masvingo senior MDC-T official Mr Misheck Gapare has ditched the party and formally applied to join Zanu-PF as the beleaguered opposition party’s support base continues to shrink.

Mr Gapare, a veteran trade unionist and founding MDC-T member has already officially written to the ruling Zanu-PF party in Masvingo applying to be an ordinary card-carrying member citing lack of direction in the Morgan Tsvangirai-led party.

He served as a provincial executive member of the MDC-T in Masvingo for many years occupying the post of provincial intelligence secretary.

The Zanu-PF leadership in Masvingo directed Mr Gapare to forward his application to join the revolutionary party to the party’s Ward 8 district in Masvingo Urban where he comes from.

In his letter to Zanu-PF Ward 8 district chair Cde Aaron Ndahwi dated August 19, Mr Gapare said he was ditching the MDC-T for Zanu-PF owing to the latter’s people-oriented policies.

Mr Gapare said the MDC-T was driven by dictatorship and ideological bankruptcy hence his decision to quit the party and join Zanu-PF.

He said the MDC-T was an inconsistent political formation that had no clue on how to take Zimbabwe forward.

“I have been a member of the MDC-T since its formation in 1999 and held various posts in that party, but I am now applying to join Zanu-PF due to its policies of promoting development for the benefit of all Zimbabweans,’’ said Mr Gapare in his letter.

He said Zanu-PF was the only political party that was driving a pro-people agenda that has the potential to take this country forward.

Zanu-PF Masvingo provincial chairman Cde Paradzai Chakona yesterday said he had not yet been informed about Mr Gapare’s decision to join the ruling party.

However, Zanu-PF secretary for security in Ward 8 and Masvingo City Councillor Against Chiteme confirmed that his district had received Mr Gapare’s letter requesting to join the ruling party.

“We received Mr Gapare’s letter and sat down as the party leadership in Ward 8 where we agreed that he brings all his MDC-T party cards and regalia and surrender them to senior members of the Zanu-PF provincial executive,’’ said Cde Chiteme.

He said they would soon forward Mr Gapare’s letter to the provincial leadership where his official unveiling as a ruling party member will be done by senior party leaders in the province.

MDC-T Masvingo provincial chairman Mr James Gumbi could not be contacted as his mobile phone repeatedly went unanswered.

The MDC-T is currently grappling with intense infighting along factional lines and recently five party members were injured after factional-related violence broke out at a party restructuring meeting in Chivi. source-herald