The head of the opposition party, the MDC, Douglas Mwonzora, has claimed that ZANU PF directed the European Union (EU) to withdraw three million euros allocated for political parties in Zimbabwe to train and deploy polling agents.
He made the comments during an interview with Blessed Mhlanga on Heart and Soul TV, where he explained his decision to withdraw from the presidential election in 2023.
Mwonzora also raised concerns about the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) using an “illegal” and “unconstitutional” delimitation report, which he believed was designed to manipulate election outcomes.
Mwonzora highlighted the MDC’s disadvantage due to the disqualification of 87 of its candidates under biased and unfair circumstances.
He criticised the ZEC’s handling of the disqualification cases, describing it as “vindictive” and suggesting that it was setting the MDC up for failure. He said:
In addition to that, the high-level political platform that is the platform headed by the Zim Institute which is made up of the CCC (Citizens Coalition for Change led by Nelson Chamisa), ZANU PF and the MDC secured financial resources from the European Union to the tune of 3 million euro for training and deployment of polling agents.
So each political party was supposed to get roughly about 1 million euro for the deployment and training of polling agents.