PRESIDENT Robert Mugabe has reportedly appointed his wife,
Grace, to lead the ruling Zanu PF party’s 2018 election campaign with various
teams, led by Cabinet ministers and politburo members, already on the ground
conducting voter registration awareness programmes.
Supported by party secretary for administration Ignatius
Chombo, political commissar Saviour Kasukuwere, legal secretary Patrick
Chinamasa and youth league boss Kudzanayi Chipanga, Grace, who is Zanu PF
secretary for women’s affairs, will lead the party’s elections directorate that
has been tasked to manage, supervise and mobilise for the 2018 polls.
Already, a high-powered delegation led by Chombo has
started visiting provinces to train provincial leaders on the new voter system
— the biometric voter registration (BVR) exercise — and take stock of party
structures ahead of the polls.
Zanu PF is divided into two distinct factions — the G40
reportedly led by Grace, and whose other kingpins are Kasukuwere and Higher
Education minister Jonathan Moyo, and Team Lacoste sympathetic to
Vice-President Emmerson Mnangagwa.
There are fears that Grace’s team might use the opportunity
to turn down applications from candidates forwarded by the rival faction.
Although party spokesperson Simon Khaya Moyo said the
directorate would be led by Chombo, sources insisted that Grace was heading the
team after Kasukuwere was relegated to superintend over sub-committees
following the recent no-confidence votes passed on him by nine of the party’s
10 provinces.
“Chombo is the man in charge of the elections directorate
and all the sub-committees work to support the directorate.
“We have just started our campaign and it shall be in
phases,” Khaya Moyo said.
“At the moment, we are mobilising our supporters for voter
registration and the commissariat department with support from other senior
leaders is moving around the country to train the party leadership on this and
how to mobilise the people out there to participate.”
The directorate is responsible for crafting the elections
strategy, from national identity cards acquisition, voter registration,
resource mobilisation, manifesto drafting, campaign messages and programme to
candidate selection and primary election rules, as well as the actual campaign
programme.
The directorate, according to insiders, has a support staff
of technocrats headed by Dickson Dzora, the director for administration at Zanu
PF headquarters, and other members are from the military and the Office of the
President and Cabinet.
According to sources, Mugabe has started consultations for
the 2018 election manifesto and tasked Moyo, as head of the research
sub-committee of the directorate, to carry out the exercise in consultation
with personnel seconded from the military and Office of the President.
Yesterday, the party’s voter registration, mobilisation and
training team led by Chombo and Kasukuwere was in Harare meeting the provincial
co-ordinating committee and had among it secretary for war veterans in the
politburo, Sydney Sekeramayi.
The team later drove to Mashonaland East province, where
the provincial co-ordinating committee was meeting for a similar programme
dubbed, “Voter Education and Mobilisation”.
Other members of the team include Obert Mpofu, the party’s
secretary for finance, who is also the head of the resource mobilisation
sub-committee.
Today, the team is expected to be in Masvingo and the
provincial political commissar, Jeppy Jaboon, confirmed the meeting.
“It’s a training of all provincial leaders on BVR and voter
registration, which is being launched by Zec [Zimbabwe Electoral Commission].
“We are also meeting to map the way forward on the
restructuring exercise so that we prepare for the 2018 elections,” he said.
Mugabe yesterday officially launched the BVR voter
registration exercise in Harare and the programme is expected to run until
January 15, 2018.
The main opposition MDC-T has, however, challenged the
proclamation of the voter registration dates, arguing that Zec has no capacity
to carry out the exercise because of lack of equipment.
The matter is still pending at the High Court. Newsday
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