The MDC issued a statement on Wednesday saying Pascal Gwezere, the party's Transport Manager, was abducted from his home in Harare on Tuesday night. It's reported the MDC employee had just arrived home in Mufakose when six armed men arrived and said he was under arrest.

The statement said the men also returned on Wednesday and took away his wife's cell phone. They reportedly told her that Gwezere had been detained at Marimba police station.

MDC spokesperson Nelson Chamisa told SW Radio Africa the party is now faced with very disturbing developments and it is becoming difficult to find out where the Transport Manager is. He said there is no cooperation at all from the police.

"As MDC we are extremely worried that the cloud of the kind of political climate of violence, persecution and assassination is beginning to form and we are possibly on the brink of yet another dispensation of suffering and pain inflicted by the abductors," said Chamisa. Referring to earlier abductions he said people had literally disappeared since last year's election, and that the party has still not accounted for seven activists who were kidnapped in similar circumstances.

Several MDC employees and officials have been targeted in recent days, since Prime Minister Tsvangirai announced his party's 'disengagement' from ZANU PF on 16th October. On Tuesday a group of men had tried to kidnap the party's Security Administrator, Edith Mashayire, in broad daylight in Harare. Last Friday another MDC employee and his wife were assaulted during a raid on an MDC house in the Chisipite area, where the police said they were looking for weapons, but found none.

The MDC believes the kidnappings and raids are a desperate attempt by ZANU PF to link the party to the alleged disappearance of an arms cache from Pomona Barracks near Borrowdale. The party said two legislators, Reggie Moyo (Luveve) and Albert Mhlanga (Pumula) were also arrested at a roadblock in Bulawayo and detained overnight at Bulawayo Central Police Station, on allegations that Moyo's car had been used to ferry the stolen ammunition from Pomona Barracks in Harare. The two were released without charge the following morning.

Unhappy with the very slow pace of reforms, the MDC has said it will only re-engage with ZANU PF when the Global Political Agreement is fully implemented. But ZANU PF has refused to take the 'boycott' seriously and the state controlled Herald reported on Wednesday that Robert Mugabe may soon appoint acting ministers to replace the MDC ministers.

Chamisa said: "The coalition government is in the intensive care unit. When one looks at the promise by ZANU PF to appoint actors and pretenders in circumstances where Ministers are there, so that they have acting Ministers, is again what flies in the face of this GPA. Mugabe and ZANU PF have literally torn apart the GPA. We continue to be noble and sincere but again what we are seeing is a clear manifestation of that deficit of sincerity on the party of ZANU PF."