Tuesday, August 16, 2005

Bennett: MDC should quit parliament

Former MDC parliamentarian Roy Bennett, on a whirlwind tour of the world after eight months behind bars has called for his party to boycott parliament--for good.

Speaking at Zimvigil's "Que for Freedom" at the Zimbabwean embassy in London on Saturday, Bennett said MDC's presence in parliament gave tacit credilibility to the rigged parliamentary elections. Bennett and his wife are in London were they have made several solidarity appearances with Zimbabwean's facing deportation.

He is not the first voice to call for the MDC to abstein from parliament. Human rights lawyer, activist, and former student leader Daniel Molokela has long mantained that he refused to join the MDC because they wanted to go to parliament.

Opponents of the MDC's involvement in any government process insist that ZANU-PF will never listen to the opposition as they rule. They say the MDC's focus on creating political space for their own agenda in a system dominated by ZANU-PF has detracted from the MDC's ability to focus on engaging the public in their quest for democracy.

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