Opposition should quit politics or join Zanu-PF

ZANU-PF has scoffed at opposition parties' claims of vote-rigging or commandeering of rural people to vote for the ruling party's parliamentary candidate in the just-ended Mwenezi East by-election.

Zanu-PF spokesperson Simon Khaya Moyo told NewsDay yesterday that the ruling party's "sound" policies had always stood it in good stead at elections.

"They are cry-babies and sing the same song every time. It would have been different if they had won. They should stop being cry-babies and quit politics or join Zanu-PF," Khaya Moyo said.

Zanu-PF's Joosbi Omar won the seat with 18 700 votes against little-known opposition candidates. But election watchdog groups that followed the poll raised a red flag over "irregularities" that exposed the inadequacies in the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission's systems as well as Zanu-PF's rigging machinery.

But Khaya Moyo poured cold water on the claims.

"The landslide victory in the Mwenezi by-election speaks volumes of a well-oiled machine that is ready to bury the fractured and disgruntled opposition. Zanu-PF has an eloquent history as a people's party that has delivered land to the country's black majority," he said.

"Unlike the disorganised opposition who continue to dream about a supposed coalition, Zanu-PF has sound policies that address the people's issues. We are a party that is on an irreversible mission to win the harmonised polls next year and will bury the opposition once and for all."

Major opposition parties in the country have collectively snubbed by-elections since the controversial 2013 elections won by President Robert Mugabe, demanding poll reforms.

Mugabe's lieutenants have, on the other hand, vowed that "Zanu-PF will not reform itself out of power".