HARARE – Zanu PF accused the MDC of declaring war on Monday, following comments by the opposition party’s deputy national chairman Job Sikhala threatening to “overthrow” President Emmerson Mnangagwa.

Should the MDC “pursue such a reckless adventure, the consequences would be dire,” warned Zanu PF spokesman Simon Khaya Moyo.

Government spokesman Ndavaningi Mangwana accused Sikhala, who was speaking during a rally in Bikita, of making “insurgent rants”.

Home Affairs Minister Cain Mathema said “anyone thinking along those lines should know that the law will descend on them.”

On Monday night, the MDC said police had summoned Sikhala who risks being charged with treason.

The MDC issued its own statement, distancing itself from Sikhala’s remarks and maintaining that he was expressing his “personal opinions”.

“It is the party’s view that Honourable Sikhala’s views as expressed at the rally and widely quoted in the press were his own personal opinions which we believe have been misconstrued and misinterpreted,” said the party’s deputy spokesman Luke Tamborinyoka.

“For the record, the MDC believes in constitutional, peaceful. Democratic, non-violent and legal means of resolving the national crisis. We have never been perpetrators of illegality and non-violence. If anything, we have been the victims.”

Sikhala told a rally in Bikita while canvassing for the party’s candidate in an impending council by-election that “the war and the fight, we’re going to take to the doorsteps of Emmerson Mnangagwa (sic). We’re going to overthrow him before 2023. That’s not a joke.”

Sikhala, accusing Mnangagwa’s government of “intimidating citizens in their homes”, added: “We’re not losers, we are winners. We’re going to defeat Zanu PF and we’re going to be committed to make sure that we terminate Zanu PF’s rulership of this country before 2023. We’re now taking our struggle to the villages. We’re done in Harare, we’re now in the villages.”

Khaya Moyo said it was clear the MDC leadership was “seriously planning and burning the midnight candle to overthrow President Mnangagwa”, calling it “enough proof of declaration of war.”

“These treasonous statements which the MDC and its retrogressive leadership continue to churn is an affront to the democratic culture which the revolutionary party Zanu PF ushered and has nurtured to this day,” he added.

Mangwana said the government had “noted with disgust insurgent rants from a member of the opposition threatening the legitimate public authorities in Zimbabwe.”

“Every country under the sun has places for miscreants and we would not hesitate to make use of them to protect democracy and constitutionalism values…,” Mangwana said in a statement.

He claimed Sikhala’s comments were a “deliberate effort to provoke authorities into enforcing the law so as to get negative international attention” before a meeting between Zimbabwe’s foreign minister Sibusiso Moyo and Britain’s foreign secretary Jeremy Hunt.