'We will not vote for a divided opposition' voters vow

A good majority of Zimbabweans have warned opposition political parties that they will not vote for a divided opposition come next elections. Results from a survey carried out by Bulawayo24 revealed that most Zimbabweans want a sort of a united opposition to battle against the ruling ZANU PF which has been in power for 34 years.

A whooping 80% of the people sampled in the survey said that as long as the opposition remains divided they will either boycott the elections or vote for ZANU PF to remain in power. 70% of them said they will boycott the election out rightly if the opposition did not unite while 30% of them said they will throw their votes ZANU PF way as a lesson for the opposition to consider unification seriously.

20% of the people sampled said they were comfortable with the political parties going for elections in their separate entities. In their comments, the 20% generally felt that a coalition for convenience will not work as the opposition parties all have different policies and principles.

As to who the leader of the united opposition would be, 40% of them gave former Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai a nod to lead the united opposition, 30% opted for any of the other people currently leading the various parties while an unexpected 30% proposed that the leader be someone completely new of the current leaders of opposition parties.

The major opposition to ZANU PF at the moment is the different factions of the Movement for Democratic Change which was founded in 1999. The MDC has since split into three "traffic light factions" the MDC T (RED) led by Morgan Tsvangirai, MDC (GREEN) led by Welshman Ncube and lately the MDC Team Renewal (ORANGE) led by Tendai Biti. The other one opposition worth mentioning of the thirty plus opposition parties in the country is Dumiso Dabengwa led ZAPU.

The continuous disintegration of the opposition since the first split of the MDC in 2005 has proven to be a triumph card for ZANU PF victories in the elections. The. Effects of the split were evident in the 2013 elections when ZANU PF was presented with easy victories in opposition dominated provinces like Matabeleland North and more so Matabeleland South. A compilation of the results clearly shows that had the two MDC factions and ZAPU gone into the election as a united force, ZANU PF would not have dominated in the two provinces let alone garner more than five seats in the two provinces.

In the run up to last year's elections, hopes were high amongst Zimbabweans that Tsvangirai and Ncube were going to bury their differences and tackle ZANU PF as a united front in what was called the grand coalition but negotiations failed at the last hurdle. Chances of that unification have been further complicated by the break out of yet another faction of the MDC from Tsvangirai, the renewal team led by Tendai Biti. In recent press reports, Morgan Tsvangirai has clearly stated that he will never forgive Welshman Ncube nor dream of uniting with anyone that has left his MDC T to join Tendai Biti's renewal team.

Bulawayo24 continues to make monthly surveys on the Zimbabwean political situation and anyone interested in being part of the surveys is free to drop in their e - mail address via the Bulawayo24 whatsapp platform on +44 7706 128821 stating their age, gender and province they are based in or diaspora if outside the country.

This month the survey will be on whether Zimbabwe should go for another GNU in the wake of the current economic collapse that the country is going through which is likely to worsen to the 2007 and 2008 levels if not addressed urgently.