Zimbabwe’s main opposition party, Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), has claimed that its legislators received death threats on Tuesday.
The threats were allegedly sent to the legislators via SMS just before President Robert Mugabe read his opening of parliament speech to officially open the third session of the eighth parliament.
The president went ahead to read the wrong speech in Parliament due to an apparent mix-up by his secretarial office.
The death threat messages were allegedly sent by an unknown number, though they were signed off as ‘Death’.
The message warned the members of parliament not to heckle the president during his address as they had done last year. It told them that the parliamentary immunity that protects them inside parliament will not apply once they step out of parliament.
Weeks earlier, the opposition had heckled and booed the president during his state of the nation address.
The recipients of the threats took the matter up with the Speaker of Parliament and they expressed their hope for investigations to be carried out.
