THE MDC Alliance is crafting a new candidate selection template, which will see the opposition party settling for some of its 2023 contenders outside its structures in consultation with community members.
Once adopted, the MDC Alliance will select its council and
parliamentary candidates in 2022, a year before the next elections to give the
contenders ample campaign time.
The party’s elections directorate led by Ian Makone is
drafting the template that is allegedly being frowned upon by mostly sitting
legislators, councillors and other top officials who fear being side-lined once
the proposal is adopted.
MDC Alliance deputy spokesperson Gift Ostallos Siziba
yesterday told The Standard the new template was necessary to ensure the party
deployed contenders that were wanted by communities to guarantee election
victory.
“Once the elections directorate finishes working on the template,
the draft will be taken to the party’s national executive and from there to the
national council for adoption so that the party prepares for primary
elections,” Siziba said.
“The specific constitutional resolution by congress (in
Gweru) was to have candidates selected and elected a year before the annual
election unlike the traditional situation.
“The template is still on course, and once adopted will be
made public for our members and different sections of our society.
“We are basically strengthening the deployment of
candidates because the key objective to be achieved by this template is to make
sure that we deploy people that are committed to serve and wanted by the
grassroots and community leaders outside our party structures.”
This follows concerns by the electorate that some sitting
legislators and councillors have not only been invisible in their
constituencies but were a big disappointment.
Analysts said the MDC Alliance risked alienating the party
from its grassroots support base if it adopted an “elitist template”.
“It may have the unintended consequences of derailing the
party from its goal of securing the seat of government because those you
consider to be the least educated and the
unemployed for example are the most enthusiastic of the support base of the
MDC.
“It creates an
elitist approach to politics, something that is completely unwarranted,”
analyst Effie Ncube argued. Standard
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