STATE media columnist, Nathaniel Manheru, revealead to be President Robert Mugabe’s spokesperson, George Charamba, has all but exposed Zanu PF’s vote-buying strategies for the 2018 general elections.
BY BLESSED MHLANGA
Manheru, in his weekly column, published in the Saturday Herald, said Zanu PF commissar and Local Government minister Saviour Kasukuwere had already rolled out the ruling party’s 2018 campaign by doling out urban residential stands to party youths in all cities and towns.
“Zanu PF services residential stands, giving them out to the young and expectant, in the process writing the next voters’ register,” Manheru wrote.
He said Kasukuwere’s move was a continuation of government’s land reform programme, with a bias towards the urban electorate this time.
“It is a continuation of the land reform programme, only this time, taken and interpreted for urbanites for urban settings,” he wrote, predicting a 2018 electoral victory for the fractious Zanu PF.
Manheru also confirmed that the Zanu PF government would capitalise on the current El Nino-induced food shortages and use food hand-outs to lure potential voters.
“Meanwhile, back in the village, no month passes without food relief distribution for all rural inhabitants, who belong, must belong and routinely vote Zanu PF,” he said.
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But MDC-T spokesperson, Obert Gutu said his party and other opposition players were geared to counter Zanu PF’s election rigging machinery.
“The MDC-T, together with other opposition political parties under the National Electoral Reform Agenda platform, is engaged in very high-level discussions, preparations and consultations that are aimed at implementing electoral reforms to ensure that the elections that will be held in 2018 are free and fair. We are pushing hard to make sure that the Zanu PF regime will not get another opportunity to rig the forthcoming elections,” he said.
