THE Zanu-PF commissariat will next week embark on a country-wide cell verification exercise as the party gears up for its primary elections and the harmonised elections.
Addressing party members during a commissariat rally in Tsholotsho yesterday, the party’s national political commissar Lieutenant General (Rtd) Engelbert Rugeje said the exercise is meant to bring order and transparency in the party structures for the purposes of free and fair elections.
“This is a blitz registration exercise. We’ve established nine commissariat teams, which I will deploy to nine provinces, except for Harare, from 9 to 14 April. The main purpose is to establish cells according to the polling stations that we have countrywide. “We’ll align the cells, record members in the cell registers, which comprise 50 people. Those 50 people will be recorded by our teams irrespective of whether they were registered before or not,” said Lt Gen Rugeje.
He said the commissariat decided to embark on the exercise after party members in some provinces complained about aspiring candidates establishing parallel structures and registering their own voters.
“The aspiring candidates will keep their registers but our teams will establish the actual cells whose members will vote. The information compiled by the commissariat teams will be compared with the existing information.
“If both registers tally they will be stamped and we go with our registers. If they don’t tally it means there’s room for cheating and we’ll use the commissariat register on the polling day to verify voters. We left out Harare because it’s a huge province in terms of numbers. When the teams complete the exercise in the nine provinces, we’ll select a day to do the same exercise in Harare,” said Lt Gen Rugeje.
He explained the party guidelines regarding voting for Senators, provincial councils, Parliamentary seats, Local Government elections and proportional representations for women.
In Lupane scores of party supporters, mostly members of the Women’s League, attended a rally addressed by the Secretary for Women’s Affairs, Cde Mabel Chinomona.
Cde Chinomona said the party was not happy that there were few women in the House of Assembly and in councils and urged women to support each other.
“I am worried about the proportion of women in this province where there are only two MPs out of 13 constituencies and only 26 councillors out of 191 wards in the province. All it means is that as women we are not supporting each other and as a result Parliament and local authorities are dominated by men who will always push for their own interests,” she said.
Cde Chinomona spoke about a wide range of issues including updating women about the political developments in the country that led to the new dispensation and how Zimbabweans from all walks of life combined efforts to deny what she termed a G40 ambush which was angling to catapult former first lady Mrs Grace Mugabe to succeed the former President.
She urged members to be wary of the National People’s Party which she said was positioning itself to destabilise Zanu-PF.
Cde Chinomona was accompanied by deputy secretary in the women’s affairs Cde Sithokozile Mathuthu, Cde Sithembiso Nyoni who encouraged women to take up projects availed to them by Government, National Commissar in the Women’s League Cde Apollonia Munzverengi among others.
There were also members of the Youth League. Meanwhile, Bulawayo provincial commissar, Cde Cannan Ncube, said tomorrow the party will be holding mini-rallies across the city to be addressed by the commissariat department. Today the commissariat will be in Matabeleland South.
“On Saturday we will hold mini rallies across the city. The rallies are meant to conscientise people on the party’s programmes,” he said.
Cde Ncube said the rallies will all be held at 2PM at Area 1 at Davies Hall, Area 2 near the Magwegwe Police Sub Office, Area 3 at the Desert ground near Njube ZRP, Area 4 at the Queen Elizabeth Ground in Nkulumane and Area 5 at Nketa Hall.
“A team led by the national political commissar will be addressing the rallies which will be held at the same time. We urge all the party members to attend the rallies to get an update on the party programmes and preparations for the elections,” said Cde Ncube. Herald
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