By Paul Nyathi
Things are heating up in the Welshman Ncube led MDC as party members jostle to take up the thirty two parliamentary seats allocated to the party under the MDC Alliance coalition agreement.
Party Deputy National Spokesperson Mbuso Siso told ZimEye.com in an interview that the party has got into action trying to identify possible candidates to represent the party in the elections set for July this year.
Siso said that the party is currently busy going through the huge applications received from the members wishing to represent the party in the elections.
“We received an overwhelming response from the members and we are currently going through the process of sorting out the applications,” said Siso.
According to Siso, the party set up a candidates selection committee which will go through the applications and come up with the list of possible candidates to be presented to the districts for an endorsement of the final person to represent the party.
“The selection committee will go through the names and present credible people to the districts for determination,” he said.
“Where there is more than one possible candidate the districts will be asked to get to a consensus on who will represent them, if that fails they will then go for a primary election which we however do not look forward to,” he said.
Siso said that the party opened up for applications from all its members including newly recruited members from other parties or former members who opted to return to the party after defecting at some point.
“We are a democratic party and that gets us to be free to accept applications from everyone who is a member of the party to be considered as a candidate including new members and returning members,” he said.
The MDC suffered huge defections after the poor performance in the 2013 elections but has since seen a number of the members finding their way back into the party.
Party insiders indicated to ZimEye.com that the party has pegged a non refundable application fee of up to $500 for one to have their application considered regardless of whether the person makes it to be the final candidate.
Siso confirmed the application fees put in place.
“We have pegged a small non refundable adminstration fee for all applicants and the amount varies depending on the member’s position in the party and the candidature being applied for,” he said.
“Those applying for council posts will pay less than those applying for House of Assembly or Senate positions,” added Siso.
Like their Alliance counterparts, MDC-T, Siso said that seating councillors and parliamentarians will not be challenged to their positions.
Siso would not be drawn to disclose some of the people who have submitted their applications for consideration as candidates. Alliance partner, MDC-T has previously accused the MDC of having what they termed “mediocre candidates” that may force them to challenge the candidates in order to save the constituencies from ZANU PF.