President Emmerson Mnangagwa today said no independent candidate is allowed to use Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front regalia because even the law does not allow that.
He said ZANU-PF members who had decided to stand as independent candidates had automatically expelled themselves from the party and should therefore not use or distribute party regalia.
Addressing a rally in Bindura today, Mnangagwa said he had heard that some of the independent candidates claimed to be backing him but this was not true because he was only backed by members of the party.
No one, including himself, he said was bigger than the party. But the party could accommodate everyone.
A senior ZANU-PF official from Mashonaland Central Perrance Shiri, who is Minister of Agriculture, said there was only one independent candidate in the province.
The candidate was Wilbert Mubaiwa whom he said had the support of one or two chiefs but he would visit the area to educate the voters that the party candidate was Patrick Dutiro.
Mnangagwa who is facing 22 other candidates in the presidential elections in 23 days was so confident of winning the elections that he promised to give chiefs more vehicles in the second week of August.
He said his government respected chiefs because they were the owners of the land.
His main rival Nelson Chamisa of the Movement for Democratic Change Alliance has vowed that Mnangagwa will not get more than 5 percent of the vote.
He says Mnangagwa can only win if the elections are rigged.
Chamisa claimed that Mnangagwa had already rigged the ballot paper because his name was now at the top instead of being at the bottom.
“This party loves rigging. On the ballot paper he should be at the bottom, but he is in the middle. Is he now called ChiMnangagwa?” Chamisa was quoted by Newsday as asking.
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