The MDC, led by Douglas Mwonzora, has set this Thursday as the deadline for aspiring candidates to submit their applications, and in areas where there are two candidates for one seat, the party will host one-day primaries across the country.
According to Mwonzora, the party’s 50 sitting Members of
Parliament were unchallenged, leaving the party with the task of selecting
candidates for the remaining 160 constituencies.
These are the constituencies where primary elections would
be held but the primaries will be confined to only party structures who have to
vote for their preferred candidate.
“Preparations for the elections are going on very well and
as the MDC, we are finalising our candidate selection process and the deadline
for all provinces to submit the names is Thursday,” Mwonzora said in an
interview with CITE.
The party leader said prospective candidates had to apply
to the party expressing their interest to run and that if there were more than
one candidate, there were two steps to choose one.
“If there is more than one candidate, we do a two-stage
process where the first process is for the candidates to persuade each other on
who must stand down and who must contest. This is possible and sometimes, this
strategy works,” Mwonzora said.
If that consensus strategy fails, the party resorts to
primary elections.
“When the candidates don’t agree with each other, then we
will do primary elections. Our primaries will be done in one day in the areas
supposed to have those,” said the MDC leader who claimed their 50 MPs were
unopposed and if vetted successfully, they could submit their nomination
papers.
“MPs in about 50 constituencies were not opposed
internally. These candidates will be vetted by security and if by Thursday, the
vetting has taken place, the candidates will straightaway submit their papers
to the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC).
Mwonzora said the main focus will then turn to the 160
remaining constituencies where the party had more than one hopeful candidate.
“We will give these candidates the weekend to make their
consensus. If they don’t come up with one candidate, then we will fix a day
countrywide. The MDC primaries are not going to involve everyone but will be
confined to the MDC structures at each level to vote,” he said.
“So a smaller group of people will be voting and it is our
hope that we have candidates in all the 210 constituencies.”
Mwonzora said MDC was also finalising its election
manifesto and chief election message, which would be launched at the end of
June.
“Our message is we are offering and standing for free
education, free health care, free maternity, interest free loans for small
business, subsidisation of agricultural input like fertilisers and chemicals.
We also want total recalibration of pensions meant to restore value to the
pensions. Basically, we are running on
social democratic people’s issues,” summed the party leader. CITE
0 comments:
Post a Comment