by RICHARD MUPONDE MDC ALLIANCE secretary-general Chalton Hwende yesterday accused the ruling Zanu PF party of trying to create a wedge between him and party leader Nelson Chamisa as a part of a grand plot to decimate the opposition party. Hwende was responding to allegations raised by former MDC Alliance senator for Midlands Lilian Timveos who accused him of single-handedly destroying the opposition party by abusing senior party members. Timveos, who was the opposition party’s deputy treasurer-general and former senator, officially defected to Zanu PF together with MDC-T secretary for local government, Blessing Chebundo on Wednesday. Timveos claimed that Hwende was in the habit of bullying senior party members during standing committee meetings in the presence of Chamisa, who remained tight-lipped. But Hwende denied the allegations and instead, accused Zanu PF of using the opposition’s “renegades” to destabilise the party. “I know that the current spate of attacks is orchestrated by Zanu PF to put a wedge between the SG and the office of the president,” Hwende said. “It is not surprising as most regimes born out of a coup entrench themselves through co-optation of opposition elements and systematic targeting of their legitimate opponents. We are a natural target since our president (Chamisa) won the 2018 election whose victory the regime stole from us.” He also denied allegations of abuse of party funds claiming the opposition party had “tried and tested systems of deploying financial resources in the party which leave no room for misappropriation of funds”. “I take pride in the systems we have put in place which cannot be manipulated in the manner suggested,” Hwende said. He said allegations that he tormented top executives during meetings to the point of tears and even drove a few to the “absurd, deplorable and treacherous act of joining Zanu PF”, were laughable. “The organ that was singled out by Zanu PF speaking through the renegades, the standing committee, is chaired by the party president,” he added. “For the record, those who have left the MDC Alliance have done so voluntarily without any undue pressure from any quarter. No one was pushed out of the MDC Alliance,” Hwende said. “It must astonish any right-thinking citizen that those who claim to be running away from being insulted in private in the MDC Alliance are joining Zanu PF, a party which has not only insulted them publicly in the past, but has maimed and killed thousands of MDC Alliance supporters. That kind of duplicity and treachery is shocking.” The MDC Alliance has always accused Zanu PF of spending millions of dollars as well as abusing State institutions to destroy the opposition party, allegations the ruling party denies.  Follow Richard on Twitter @muponderichard