Does Nelson Chamisa really have the youths’ vote?

The simple answer is not really. If it is true that figures don’t lie then, the Movement for Democratic Change Alliance leader has a lot of work to do and very little time to do that since there are only 16 days to the elections.

Chamisa is banking on the youth and urban vote to win the coming elections and says Emmerson Mnangagwa of the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front will come a distant second.

“People are connecting with young leadership,” Chamisa declared recently. “The world is moving… young people are taking charge, look at France, look at Canada, look at New Zealand — look at the United States.  Most of the young people out there are connecting with our message, are connecting with my age — they are connecting with the vision I’m articulating.”

A poll by Afrobarometer in April/May showed that more youths would vote for Mnangagwa than for Chamisa. They say this is probably because there are more youths registered to vote in the rural areas than in urban areas.

The poll showed that Mnangagwa would poll 37 percent of the vote from youths aged 18-25 against Chamisa’s 36 percent.

Chamisa would get 36 percent of the vote of those aged 26-35 against Mnangagwa’s 38 percent.

After that the gap was much wider.

The MDC has rubbished the Afrobarometer poll but it did the same thing in 2012 and lost the 2013 elections dismally though it blames the loss on rigging.

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