Zimbabwe’s ruling party, Zanu-PF, has rejected a letter written by someone named Tafadzwa Manyika. Manyika, who says he is the party’s temporary secretary-general, asked for 70 legislators to be removed from parliament because they are no longer party members. Farai Marapira, who runs the information department for Zanu-PF, said to the BBC that Mr. Manyika is not recognized as a member of the party.
The person said that we have a set of rules called a constitution, our organization is organized and well-known (unlike the CCC), we have someone elected as a leader, and we don’t have temporary officials. The letter is similar to one sent before, which led to 15 members of the opposition Citizens Coalition for Change party being kicked out of parliament last week and their seats being declared empty.
Sengezo Tshabangu, who said he was the temporary leader of CCC, wrote a letter stating that the 15 lawmakers were no longer part of CCC.
The CCC thought he was pretending to be someone else, working for the ruling party. They believed he was trying to make the number of opposition MPs smaller, so that Zanu-PF could have more control in parliament. Even though the leader of the CCC, Nelson Chamisa, had sent a letter saying that the MPs being recalled were still part of the party, the parliamentary speaker, Jacob Mudenda, who is a senior Zanu-PF member, still went ahead with the recalls.
In Zimbabwe, if a Member of Parliament stops being a part of the political party they were elected with, they can be removed from their position.
However, it doesn’t mention who is allowed to do it. The recalls lead to new elections being held.