Natalie Nyathi
THREE M’s (money, the military, and the media) are the key guarantors of political success for any political party, union, and individual. In Zimbabwe, only one party has its grip on all three.
Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front, ZANU-PF, the current ruling party, is in control because of the three factors mentioned in the preamble.
The revolutionary party splashes money in many ways, it is backed by the military as it has amongst its members former war liberators who are serving in the National Army. The party also has ensured that the National Broadcaster, ZBC, which runs ZTV and several radio station churns out material that favors ZANU-PF.
The national broadcaster has shut out news concerning opposition parties especially Citizens Coalition for Change led by Advocate Nelson Chamisa.
When and if any news is mentioned concerning CCC, it will be bad publicity news
As such the opposition is seriously, as usual, at a disadvantage in this year’s harmonized elections slated for August 23. And they know it.
First, there were the exorbitant fees that barred many aspiring opposition candidates from participating, the lack of media coverage of the opposition,n, and campaign funding ensuring the playing field is uneven, and tilted in favor of ZANU-PF.
Having ‘Politicized and militarized’ security agents and institutions who are viewed to be politically biased
running the electoral process further takes away the concept of free, credible, and fair elections. Leaving the opposition, mainly the Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC) looking for alternatives to attract and reach voters.
Opposition rallies have been banned for no constitutional reasons and disrupted throughout the country. CCC has thus turned to door to door campaign strategy.
In Bulawayo, CCC’s aspiring Cowdray Party constituency Member of Parliament Pashor Sibanda on Friday kick-started his campaign. It was however unsuccessful after suspected Zanu PF youths allegedly dispersed the yellow nation by violent means.
Over the same weekend, Gift ‘Ostallos’ Siziba followed suit in Tshabalala and Pelandaba.
According to the Deputy Spokesperson for the Triple C, conducting a door-to-door campaign after a fraudster forged party signatures and fielded by Forever Associates Zimbabwe as a CCC MP candidate will shed light on whose the real candidate of the party is.
Siziba is running for the Tshabalala-Pelandaba seat in the House of Assembly as part of the #NC23 Campaign.
“It’s a volunteers program whose objective is to reach out to every voter in Tshabalala and Pelandaba. The objective is to reach out to every voter”, said Siziba.
Committed individuals collaborated with council candidates Simbarashe Dube from Ward 20, Lovewell Mwinde from Ward 13, and Tinevimbo Maphosa from Ward 21 to communicate and spread awareness of the ongoing campaign with the public.
It’s been established that the resident’s response was extremely favorable, and many of them expressed gratitude to the champions for making the effort to get to know them and get along with them. They were excited and prepared for the impending general election, which demonstrated their desire for improvement.
The #NC23 Campaign is said to be deliberately planned to complement the leadership of Nelson Chamisa while concentrating on connecting with at least 30,000 residents in Tshabalala-Pelandaba. The program is believed to strive for inclusiveness and bring about positive change and advancement for everyone in the neighborhood.
Siziba added:
“Given that there is a fraudster who forged party signatures and was fielded by Faz as a CCC MP candidate, so part of the key duty of volunteers is to educate people that in Pelandaba-Tshabalala Constituency the CCC official candidate is Gift “Ostallos” Siziba.”
Zim GBC News 2023©