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Zvamaida Murwira Harare Bureau
ZANU-PF and MDC-T will share $6 million allocated to political parties by Treasury in the 2016 national budget. Finance and Economic Development Minister Patrick Chinamasa allocated the $6 million in his 2016 national budget that was presented in Parliament last Thursday. The figure is a 100 percent rise from the $3 million that he allocated for 2015.

Zanu-PF will get the lion’s share of the money after it secured more than two-thirds of parliamentary seats as it trounced MDC-T in the July 2013 watershed election. The revolutionary party went on to increase its presence in Parliament after it won several by-elections that were held following the decision by MDC-T to recall 14 legislators.

Zanu-PF won 160 out of the contested 210 National Assembly seats in the July 31, 2013, elections, with MDC-T winning 49. One seat went to an independent contestant, Jonathan Samkange.

With MDC-T not participating in by-elections, Zanu-PF is set to wrest Nkulumane constituency that was left vacant following the death of Thamsanqa Mahlangu two months ago, increasing its number of seats from 160 to 175.

A rough calculation shows Zanu-PF will get about $5 million of the $6 million with MDC-T set to receive $1 million. MDC, led by Professor Welshman Ncube, which benefited from the money over the last two parliaments, misses out this time as it failed to secure the threshold stipulated for a political party to be eligible to benefit.

Under the Political Parties Finance Act, only a political party that secures five percent of the total votes cast qualifies to benefit from Treasury. The government enacted the Political Parties Finance Act in 2002 after it emerged that some political parties were getting funding from hostile foreign governments and non-governmental organisations.

Some parties have tried to circumvent the law by getting money from NGOs that are based in Zimbabwe. Many countries, including the United States, do not allow political parties to get foreign funding.

Small political parties have in the past asked the government to extend financing to them but their pleas hit a brickwall when the Constitutional Court dismissed their application. The Zimbabwe Development Party, led by Kisinot Mukwazhi, approached the Constitutional Court in January 2013 seeking an order to compel Treasury to release funding to all political parties participating in national elections.

The court said it would be “irresponsible and dangerous for the government if all political parties were to be funded” from the fiscus.