HARARE, Oct. 29 (Xinhua) -- Zimbabwe's ruling ZANU-PF party has warned that claims by MDC Alliance vice president Morgen Komichi that the opposition party had installed its president Nelson Chamisa as the state president was treasonous and that the party was thus "playing with fire."
The opposition party on Saturday held its 19th anniversary commemorations in Harare where Chamisa was said to have been installed as state president.
ZANU-PF secretary for information and publicity Simon Khaya Moyo said the installation was a "kindergarten spectacle" and that the MDC Alliance leadership should bear the consequences of "such misguided conduct and avoid playing with fire," state newspaper The Herald reported on Monday.
"The political circus at the MDC Alliance celebration at Gwanzura Stadium where those who attended were hoodwinked into believing that Nelson Chamisa is the president of Zimbabwe following the July 30 harmonized elections resembled a kindergarten spectacle.
"In fact, the announcement by Morgen Komichi at the rally that his boss had been duly bestowed as the president of Zimbabwe borders on treason and is condemnable," Moyo said.
He said the fact that Chamisa was invited to the podium to light up what he termed the democracy flame, which resembled the country's independence flame, was an insult to the protracted liberation struggle that led to majority rule in 1980 and an affront to Zimbabweans as a whole.
Chamisa narrowly lost the presidential election to ZANU-PF President Emmerson Mnangagwa, and an appeal to the Constitutional Court to nullify the result did not provide him with the relief he sought.
He has since threatened mass protests to push Mnangagwa out of the presidency.
