'Zanu-PF youths should step up their game ahead of elections'

Zanu-PF-ALIGNED youth empowerment leader James Pande has urged his peers to avoid spending their precious time and energy fighting opposition MDC-T leader Nelson Chamisa, but step up their campaign to ensure a resounding victory for the ruling party's presidential candidate Emmerson Mnangagwa.

In a Facebook post last week that drew mixed reactions from his followers, Pande urged the Zanu-PF youth league to focus on revamping the party's internal affairs.

"I think it's very old-fashioned and childish to focus on denouncing Nelson Chamisa and MDC, Zanu-PF youth league must just up their game, period,"he posted.

"We do not want negative energy. Rather, we should use our energy to support our candidate Emmerson Mnangagwa. We should not focus on the next door's politics, but should focus on our structures, revamping them and mobilising support for the party and president. We should not care and worry about what Chamisa is doing at MDC, whether they are lying to the electorate or not, what we should be focus on is our house," Pande later told NewsDay.

His critics, however, said their campaign would not be complete without criticising opposition policies and actions.

"So you want us to clap hands for him wen he goes to USA and ask USA senators to keep illegal economic sanctions in place for the layman to die when our hospitals cannot get drugs or necessary machinery needed in our health institutions? Ahhh, my brother," one MacKenzie Mabeka said in response to Pande's call.