Youth vote for Chamisa not guaranteed says youth organisation

A youth empowerment organisation says today’s youth are going to vote for genuine people that they know and not necessarily for the Movement for Democratic Change Alliance leader Nelson Chamisa who seems to be banking on the youths to propel him to power.

Platform for Youth Development Trust, a Chisumbanje-based organisation, said because of the freedom people and political parties were now enjoying, the MDC no longer commands the same constituency that the late Morgan Tsvangirai did.

PYD director Claris Madhuku told NewZimbabwe.Com: “People were telling us that because of a wide choice of political candidates and parties that have expressed interest to contest they were not going to vote for parties but genuine people they know.”

One of the leading contenders the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front is calling people to vote for the party and not the individual because the party is bigger than the individual, while Chamisa seems to be pushing for his own victory at the expense of that of his party.

Madhuku said the opposition was likely to lose a number of seats in Manicaland because of the divisions in the MDC-T.

“I had the privilege of attending the nomination court on 14 June of councillors in Chipinge and the nomination court of members of House of Assembly in Mutare and I discovered that ZANU-PF was by far organised than MDC,” he said.

“In Chipinge, the opposition (MDC) has several wards where they failed to field councillors and in the House of Assembly the same party fielded more than two candidates in one constituency a development which never happened during Tsvangirai’s era where the opposition was strong.”

Both the MDC Alliance and ZANU-PF gave members who registered as independent candidates until end of day yesterday to withdraw.

It is not clear whether this call was heeded or not. The full story will emerge on Monday when the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission publishes the full list of candidates contesting the elections.

No one can officially withdraw once the list has been published.

Zimbabwe heads for polls on 30 July with ZANU-PF urging people to vote for it to conclude Operation Restore Legacy while the MD Alliance insists it is the only party that can bring about genuine transformation.

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