Buoyed by its impressive showing in last week’s by-election, opposition leader Nelson Chamisa’s Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC) is stepping up its campaigns in rural areas, long perceived to be Zanu PF strongholds, ahead of the 2023 elections.
Chamisa’s CCC won 19 of the available 28 parliamentary
seats while Zanu PF got the remainder, including two that they grabbed from the
opposition — Epworth and Mutasa South.
The by-elections were viewed as the barometer to gauge
popularity ahead of the 2023 general elections where Chamisa will likely square
off with President Emmerson Mnangagwa who won the 2018 presidential election by
a narrow margin.
Both Zanu PF and CCC are celebrating their performance in
the by-elections, with the ruling party saying the result narrowed the
opposition’s popularity in its strongholds such as Binga North constituency.
CCC’s Prince Dubeko-Sibanda won Binga North with 10 130
votes, defeating Kudakwashe Mavula Munsaka of Zanu PF who came second with 7971
votes.
In 2018, Dube-Sibanda got 18 428 votes against Zanu PF’s 7
751.
In a post Cabinet briefing last week, the government
stopped short of saying Binga and other rural areas were now a priority for
Zanu PF.
But CCC interim secretary-general Charton Hwende said the
opposition party was also turning its eye on the rural vote with a basket of
interventions including drilling boreholes in each of the country’s rural
wards.
“The president (Chamisa) embarked on a tour of all the
rural areas where he met Zimbabweans before we formed CCC. Our rural
penetration program is a continuation of what the president started,” Hwende
told The Standard yesterday.
“Rural areas are key for the CCC, this is where most of the
electoral violations take place. That’s where headmen and chiefs force people
to vote for Zanu PF. So it is our duty as a party to ensure we have a strong
presence in the rural areas.|”
In 2021, Chamisa visited rural areas under the meet the
people tours but his entourage and supporters were attacked on several
occasions by suspected Zanu PF supporters.
The violence claimed the life of MDC Alliance activist
Nyasha Zhambe of Gutu, Masvingo.
According to a Zanu PF central committee report by the
security department adopted at the party’s conference held in Bindura last
year, the ruling party was worried by Chamisa’s inroads in rural areas.
“This is meant to penetrate the ruling party’s rural areas,
they will manage to mobilise substantial support from the rural areas, and this
will brighten their chances of winning the presidential vote,” the central
committee report read in part.
Zanu PF spokesperson Christopher Mutsvangwa said he was in
a meeting when contacted for comment. Party secretary for administration Obert
Mpofu said Mutsvangwa was the best person to comment.
But Hwende said the opposition party would be “leaving no
village unturned.”
“We are also urging our supporters that every weekend they
visit their rural areas and be with the people there to understand how they
live, to campaign and sell the CCC message,” he said.
“Operation Handei Kumusha is ongoing and all our party
cadres are deployed in villages throughout the country, leaving no village
unturned. We are under 12 months before the next election. It is now full
throttle campaigning throughout the country and fundraising is also ongoing
driven by the citizens themselves.”
Analyst Effie Ncube said the rural electorate was key when
Zimbabwe goes for elections in 2023.
“Whoever wins it with an overwhelming majority is going to
most likely be the next president of the country and the party that is going to
win the rural constituency is going to be the majority party in parliament,” Ncube
said yesterday.
“You cannot win the parliamentary majority without winning
the rural constituencies. The distribution of the constituencies is such that
you definitely need to win the majority if not all the rural constituencies and
also at a presidential level you need the numbers from the rural areas, no
doubt about it. That will be the key decider of the 2023 election.” Standard
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