MDC founding member calls Grace a liar

Politics
FOUNDING MDC member and former Midlands South secretary Frank Gwanzura has blasted First Lady Grace Mugabe over sensational claims she made that their party was formed in Vice-President Joice Mujuru’s house.

FOUNDING MDC member and former Midlands South secretary Frank Gwanzura has blasted First Lady Grace Mugabe over sensational claims she made that their party was formed in Vice-President Joice Mujuru’s house.

Stephen Chadenga OWN CORRESPONDENT

Addressing Zanu PF supporters in Marondera last Friday, Grace made claims that opposition parties MDC and Simba Makoni’s Mavambo/Kusile/Dawn were formed in Mujuru’s house.

She also insinuated that Mujuru was a corrupt leader who benefited from illicit diamond deals and extorting companies and that she connived with the MDC-T to try to stop elections last year.

Gwanzura, aged 84, said he was part of the team that formed MDC in Makokoba and rubbished Grace’s claims as “outright lies not befitting a First Lady”.

“We met and formed MDC at a house in Makokoba, Bulawayo, before meeting again on the same day at a stadium (in Makokoba),” Gwanzura told the Southern Eye yesterday.

“Never did we go near Mujuru’s house and I wonder why the First Lady is so desperate to raise her political profile through lies.”

Gwanzura, who was also an executive member in the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Union when MDC-T leader Morgan Tsvangirai was the union’s secretary-general, said he was disheartened that the MDC-T he helped form was being tarnished by “cheap politicking”.

He said it was shameful that Grace wanted to use the MDC-T to gain political mileage. “Can she prove her claims? And in any case why make the sensational statements now? This woman has to be truthful and stop telling lies to the nation,” he charged.