HARARE - Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s MDC has rejected charges that there is a simmering succession war between alleged protagonists Nelson Chamisa and Tendai Biti to take over from Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai.

Chamisa and Biti have been touted as front-runners to take over the reins in the MDC once Tsvangirai steps down in 2016. But both have strenuously rejected the alleged factional fights, said to have erupted at a recent Standing Committee meeting.

The party’s national spokesman Douglas Mwonzora said: “The MDC totally dismisses as false reports that Biti and Chamisa clashed. Those are malicious reports meant to cause disharmony in the party.

“We know the MDC is a target of malicious reporting.”

Chamisa told reporters this week that as a party, they had very clear structures.

“Hon Tendai Bit is not just a brother but a comrade,” Chamisa said.

“He is not just a comrade, but my senior. We have a hierarchy in the party, we have seniority in very explicit terms,” added the ICT minister.

“I am concerned about fictionalism of factionalism within the party. What appeared in one of the newspapers about me and honourable Biti is totally fallacious as it was built on outright fiction,” said Chamisa.

“That which unites us is far more than that which may divide us. It can only be Zanu PF that throws that kind of fiction. Factionalism is the concept we know from next door, from Zanu PF.”
Biti also denied there was a rift with his erstwhile comrade.

“To say we are brothers is an understatement and to further write a story claiming that we clashed is malicious. We are a united and visionary organisation,” Biti insisted.

Chamisa said the insinuation of the so-called succession battles was completely false.

“For starters there is no succession to talk about,” Chamisa said. “We are all united to get president Tsvangirai to the State house. We all belong to the faction for real change that is united by president Tsvangirai.”

Meanwhile, Biti said there was no plan to boycott the forthcoming elections.