ZANU PF leaders in Masvingo, straight from an electoral drubbing by opposition Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC) have blamed non-governmental organisations (NGOs) for the party’s dismal showing at last month’s by-elections.
The CCC claimed all four wards contested at last month’s elections.
Despite acknowledging voter apathy, Zanu PF provincial chairperson Robson Mavhenyengwa accused NGOs of using money to induce voters to opt for CCC.
Mavhenyengwa singled out Community Tolerance Reconciliation and Development (COTRAD) and promised they had found a solution to its alleged act of vote buying.
“We have done several meetings and it emerged that there were some organizations including COTRAD who were giving people money in urban wards. We therefore came up with strategies which we will implement as we go into the 2023 harmonized elections but we can’t publicly speak about them right now,” Mavhenyengwa said.
“Another thing that we noted is that there was generally low voter turnout on elections day so we will work very hard to win urban wards come 2023. I am confident that we will win more urban seats.”
COTRAD Programs Manager, Zivanai Muzorodzi scoffed at the allegations which he deemed outrages and said their organization was simply observing not campaigning or de-campaigning any party or candidate.
“Those are baseless allegations because we were simply observing the pre-election, voting process and post-election period. People should learn to differentiate civic society and political parties because we are not aligned to any party,” Muzorodzi said.
Zanu PF and NGOs have had an acrimonious relationship since the early 2000s when it blamed it for funding opposition MDC.
In recent times the party has tried to shut them down.
As it stands CCC now has majority of councilors in the local authority with four councilors, Zanu PF has three and the other three who came in on the MDC-Alliance ticket haven’t declared their allegiance to either CCC or MDC-Alliance.
Zanu PF retained its two parliamentary seats in Chivi South and Mwenezi East constituencies where Munyaradzi Zizhou and Master Makope were duly elected.