Youths urged to start campaigning for Mugabe

ZANU-PF national commissariat secretary for the youths, Innocent Hamandishe, has called on all party members to give President Mugabe a perfect present of a landslide victory during next year's harmonised elections.

Addressing executive members of Manicaland Youth League at the Provincial Administrator's boardroom in Mutare last Saturday, Hamandishe called on all youths to start campaigning for President Mugabe as the party's candidate for the 2018 harmonised elections.

"We are heading towards watershed elections next year and our major focus is to secure a convincing victory for President Mugabe. President Mugabe is our sole candidate and we want to ensure that he has the majority of votes in every constituency across the country.

"Our mission is to transform this provincial executive committee into President Mugabe's campaign team. Everyone present here is now President Mugabe's political commissar. An election is a game of numbers and we always say the youths are the majority in Zimbabwe and this should transform into more votes for President Mugabe," he said.

Hamandishe added: "We should roll out a voter education programme for our members. Yes, we can boast of being the majority, but do the youths know the importance of voting? We should also ensure that more youths are registered as voters because most of them are not interested in voting," he said.

Hamandishe called on youths to prepare for President Mugabe's provincial rallies to be held across all the 10 provinces this year.

"Before President Mugabe embarks on the provincial rallies, our secretary for youth affairs, Kudzanai Chipanga will go around the country addressing youth rallies. We should mobilise our constituencies to have massive turnouts during these two events.

For President Mugabe's provincial rallies, we expect each province to mobilise not less than 100 000 people. For Chipanga's rallies we expect not less than 10 000 people in attendance. We should show the outside world and all opposition parties that President Mugabe still has the numbers," he said.

On opposition parties' coalition, Hamandishe said: "We do not lose sleep over the so-called coalition. The coalition will not go anywhere. If you add confusion and confusion the end result will be more confusion. The opposition is in disarray and we should put the final nail on its coffin in 2018," he said.

Speaking at the same occasion, Manicaland provincial youth chairman, Mubuso Chinguno, said they had made great strides in securing land for youths' residential stands.

"We are happy with the strides we have made so far. In Chipinge, we have already secured 376 hectares of land for the programme. There are a lot of hurdles in acquiring stands for the youths, but we are making a lot of progress. The layout plan for the Chipinge residential stands was approved and in the near future, we will be giving the youths their stand numbers.

"We acquired 50 hectares at Checheche, 40ha at Birchenough Bridge, 40 hectares in Makoni rural, 265ha in Rusape and 100ha at Arda Transau just outside Mutare. We are having challenges in acquiring land in Mutare, Chimanimani and Nyanga and we will adopt a radical approach in acquiring land in these areas," he said.