PEOPLE’S Rainbow Coalition (PRC) presidential candidate and
former Vice-President, Joice Mujuru, has dared President Emmerson Mnangagwa, to
come clean on a number of electoral-related concerns, amid allegations that
government has deployed over 3 000 soldiers in civilian clothes to campaign for
the ruling Zanu PF in rural and urban areas ahead of this year’s general
elections.
In a letter dated February 23 and addressed to Mnangagwa,
Mujuru’s lawyers, Hamunakwadi and Nyandoro, said her coalition partners feared
that the deployment of soldiers by Zanu PF compromised the integrity of the
upcoming polls.
“Zanu PF political commissariat and government have
deployed an estimated 3 000 military officials in civilian clothes into both
urban and rural communities to campaign for Zanu PF ahead of the election,”
Mujuru said.
“These and other security personnel deployed in various
institutions including the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (Zec) should be weeded
out urgently.”
The PRC, which comprises Democratic Assembly for
Restoration and Empowerment (Dare), Mujuru’s National People’s Party (NPP), and
Zimbabweans United for Democracy (Zunde), is one the three opposition alliances
contesting this year’s elections against Zanu PF.
The other coalition — MDC Alliance, led by Nelson Chamisa —
is made up of MDC-T, MDC, Multi-racial Christian Democrats, ZimPF, Zanu Ndonga,
People’s Democratic Party (PDP), and Transform Zimbabwe.
Renewal Democrats of Zimbabwe leader Elton Mangoma also
leads another opposition coalition, Code, but comprising fringe political
parties.
In her correspondence, Mujuru also challenged Mnangagwa to
stop paying lip service to electoral reforms.
She argued that despite making several public
pronouncements to reform the electoral roadmap, Mnangagwa had done nothing
tangible to level the political playing field with less than six months before
the polls.
“Our client is worried that despite your office’s
pronouncements to that effect, there are no indications that since you assumed
power, sufficient steps and programmes of engagement with all the necessary
stakeholders has been done in order to ensure the promotion of a conducive
environment for free, fair and credible elections,” the lawyers wrote.
Mujuru claimed that the State media remained captured by
the ruling party to the detriment of the opposition.
She warned that failure to free media space, confine
soldiers to the barracks and reform legislation to ensure compliance with the
Constitution would result in disputed election results
“Without the necessary and much-needed electoral reforms by
Zimbabweans, hope for a free, fair and credible election is diminished on a
daily basis,” she said.
“We call on the demilitarisation of the electoral process.
All members of the security forces, in adherence to the Constitution, must
first and foremost protect the Zimbabwean citizens despite their political
affiliation.”
Contacted for comment yesterday, government and Zanu PF
spokesperson Simon Khaya Moyo dismissed Mujuru’s claims as “hogwash”.
“That is nonsense, absolute hogwash. Why would we do that?
We are the people’s party, we have support and strong structures that can
campaign for us. The army has no business in elections. If she has deployed her
army, then she can talk about that army because we have no knowledge about what
she is talking about,” he said.
Moyo said the party’s political commissar, Retired
Major-General Engelbert Rugeje, had no powers to commandeer soldiers to
campaign for Zanu PF.
“Rugeje is not part of the army. He retired and is,
therefore, no longer part of the command element. He has no powers to deploy or
command any section of the army,” he said. Newsday
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