Zimbabwean parliamentary candidate Rainos Tivatye of the United People’s Party, who seeks the house seat for Zengeza East, Harare Metropolitan Province, said he was assaulted on Tuesday by youth militants of the ruling ZANU-PF party.
Now receiving medical care, Tivatye told reporter Carole Gombakomba of VOA's Studio 7 for Zimbabwe that police briefly detained the youths but released them without charges.
In another incident of alleged political violence, parliamentary candidate Florence Machinga of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change grouping of Morgan Tsvangirai, running for the Uzumba, Mashonaland East, seat, said that known ZANU-PF supporters kidnapped and detained her for almost four hours.
Machinga was returning from a meeting with Zimbabwe Electoral Commission officials at Mutawatawa Growth Point when a truck full of ruling party candidates pulled over and dragged her into the truck which then sped off.
Machinga told reporter Jonga Kandemiiri of VOA's Studio 7 for Zimbabwe that she was harassed and verbally abused for hours before her abductors handed her over to police, accusing her of tearing down ZANU-PF posters. But police did not charge her.
