Zanu PF big spenders suffered electoral defeats in urban areas with analysts saying the urban electorate could never be swayed by temporary trinkets, which did not address the issue of poverty.
Political analysts
said the trend confirmed long held views that the urban electorate had long
given Zanu PF the ‘red card’ for presiding over the country’s multi-faceted
socio-economic crisis.
Gold dealer Scott Sakupwanya failed to win the
Mabvuku-Tafara seat in Harare despite spending big in the constituency.
Sakupwanya lost to Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC)
candidate, Febion Kufahakutizwi.
Sakupwanya spent millions in his campaign including
bringing for entertainment former American boxer Floyd Mayweather, as he flexed
his financial muscle.
The gold dealer, who was said to be the country’s biggest
gold exporter in the Al Jazeera
documentary called the Gold Mafia, also provided Mabvku-Tafara residents with
free transport as part of his campaign.
Sakupwanya also rehabilitated roads in the constituency. He
polled 12 038 votes against Febion Kufahakutizwi of Citizens Coalition for
Change (CCC), who got 15 934 votes.
The former Mabvuku councillor was not alone in throwing his
money into a bottomless pit as he was joined by Finance minister Mthuli Ncube
who lost the battle for Cowdray Park in Bulawayo to CCC’s Pashor Raphael
Sibanda (28).
Ncube initiated a number of development projects in the
constituency after he was confirmed as a Zanu PF candidate.
In several other parts of the country, some Zanu PF
candidates delivered trinkets, drilled boreholes and dished out freebies for
votes.
Zanu PF held lavish rallies where supporters were treated
to fried chicken and chips as well as fizzy drinks, but the urban electorate
turned their backs on the party on voting day.
Analysts said urban voters pay close attention to the
economy as opposed to trinkets thrown at them.
Stephen Chan, a professor of world politics at the
University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies, said voters,
especially in the urban areas understood the national picture that impacted
their daily lives.
“They will take the ‘chicken and chips’, but not
necessarily vote for the big spender,” Chan said.
“In Ncube's case, everyone knows he was the minister of
Finance, who presided over the economic erosion that has so severely damaged
their lives.”
Southern Africa Programme Head for the Institute for
Security Studies’ southern Africa programme head, Piers Pigou, said the vote
trends showed the success of voter awareness campaigns.
“In many respects in areas this has happened it reflects
one level of sophistication from the local electorate in the context of their
needs that they will be prepared to accept whatever gifts or trinkets are on
offer but not shift their political needs,” Pigou said.
Witwatersrand University-based political analyst Romeo
Chasara said voters in cities had always preferred the opposition as they
blamed the ruling party for the country’s socio-economic ills.
“Urban voters tend
to vote for the main opposition political party with little regard for its
representatives, especially at local and constituency levels,” Chasara said’
“Throughout the campaign period, supporters were encouraged
to attend Zanu PF rallies and accept all that was being offered including
regalia but to punish it in the ballot box.”
Bulawayo-based analyst Effie Ncube said some voters saw
Zanu PF as the source of the country’s problems.
“They see that Zanu PF is the biggest threat to their
livelihoods, and that of their children and the future of their families,”
Ncube said.
“They know that the big-money spenders are part of the
problem hence they took the money and rejected them.”
Political analyst Vivid Gwede said the voting trends were
an indication that voters ‘have become more assertive about what they want’.
“They have rejected them on the basis of their association
with a failed ruling party,” Gwede said.
Zanu PF boasted of a huge budget for the just ended
elections with one of President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s allies Uebert Angel
telling undercover Al Jazeera journalists that produced the Gold Mafia expose
that the ruling party leader had a US$240 million war chest for the elections.
The ruling party is said to have splashed money on nearly
1000 all-terrain vehicles for the campaign.
However, parliamentary results shown so far shows that Zanu
PF might have lost a lot of ground to the CCC, which was deprived of funding by
Mnangagwa’s government, which sided with the Douglas Mwonzora-led MDC Alliance
following a controversial Supreme Court judgement. Standard
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