ANESUMASAMVU & RYAN CHIGOCHE
President Emmerson Mnangagwa yesterday called for a peaceful by election as campaigning for the March 26 polls entered the homestretch.
Addressing thousands of party supporters at Chaminuka school grounds in St Mary’s Chitungwiza, Mnangagwa said political parties should concede defeat.
“The time has come to kick out the Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC) and other opposition political parties out of council, it is now a totally different ball game, let us be united and we want peace, we hear this boy (Nelson Chamisa) saying if I don’t win, I will make sure that this country is ungovernable, we will cause chaos, can we say he is someone who has the people’s will at heart, someone who advocates the spilling of blood,” Mnangagwa said.
He added: Now make sure that haapinde (don’t vote for Chamisa) because you will have voted peacefully while casting the vote on Zanu PF candidates and avoid all opposition candidates.”
Mnangagwa warned the youths against participating in demonstrations encouraging them to take up opportunities that empower them.
Zimbabwe will be going to the polls this weekend to vote for 28 MPs and 122 councillors.
The CCC said it was well prepared for the Saturday poll accusing the elections management body, the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission for its lack of preparedness.
Last week, CCC demanded that ZEC revert to the 2018 voters rolls after noticing some irregularities and unconstitutional ‘delimitations’‘ on the current voters role.
The anomalies that CCC discovered upon analysing the voters roll were ranging from duplicates, displaced voters, and persons with same addresses being moved to other wards or constituencies without their knowledge.
“The CCC as a political movement driven by the citizens is extremely well prepared for the upcoming elections, but however we have misgivings about the preparedness of the electoral management body ZEC who are currently using a shambolic voters roll that is not complying with the basic principles set out in the constitution,” CCC spokesperson Fadzayi Mahere told Business Times.
“There are unlawful delimitations and various irregularities they are not prepared to conduct the election. There has been a huge lack of transparency they failed to name the poling offices that are going to be working on election day on Saturday .They have also instituted new rules that don’t accord with the constitution for example that they can only be one polling agent per station we all know the huge task of a polling agent.”
Zanu PF spokesperson Christopher Mutsvangwa said his party was going to capitalise on the confusion between MDC-A and CCC to take more local seats.
“We are taking by-elections seriously, hence our President devoted so much time, energy and attention. We will retain our traditional seats. We also want to claw away more seats from constituencies declared vacant by internal MDC-CCC internal strife and ensuing expulsions,” Mutsvangwa said.
He slammed the CCC and its demands to ZEC saying the body was constitutional.
“ZEC operates as a statutory body. It is not beholden to any partisan entity other than the Constitution of the Republic of Zimbabwe,” Mutsvangwa said.
The MDC Alliance bemoaned lack of resources in the build up to the polls. The party’s spokesperson Witness Dube told Business Times the formation was “ready for the by election we have done a lot of what we wanted to do.
“Although we had an issue with lack of resources we did engage the voter especially through door to door campaign because it was our choice strategy,” Dube said.
“We wanted to reposition a message of hope from our party, but even so we wanted to give the voter our strategy in terms of achieving our manifesto. We believe that dialogue is the best way forward all the other parties will never have an opportunity to effect their manifestos if the country does not pull in one direction.”
