New Zanu-PF rigging plan exposed: MDC-T

Out of desperation to reclaim lost ground in the rural areas, Zanu-PF decided to deploy at least two senior military officers in each administrative district of Manicaland and Masvingo as part of what it calls the "throw it all" campaign strategy ahead of the elections.

The implementation of the strategy, co-ordinated by retired air vice marshal Henry Muchena and his deputy in the Zanu-PF Commissariat, Kizito Kuchekwa, is being fast-tracked before SADC despatches the region's three monitors to the Joint Monitoring and Implementation Committee (JOMIC) in terms of a resolution of the SADC Organ on Defence and Security.

Zanu-PF insiders say Muchena and Kuchekwa are frantically working overtime to wrestle the two populous provinces from the MDC after the 29 March 2008 Zanu-PF defeat which saw the party lose a substantial following in the rural areas.

Part of the grand reclamation plan includes the fielding of former military personnel as Zanu-PF candidates in most of the rural constituencies; the invocation of war time campaign methods which covers forced all night meetings; the so-called "re-education seminars";  intimidation and violence against perceived dissenters.

"We are still working hard to discourage support for MDC elsewhere, in particular the Mashonaland provinces which, though we retained in 2008, registered a more than 60 percent growth in the MDC support," Kuchekwa said.

"The two senior military officers would command several units of non-commissioned officers in civilian clothes who are already being deployed back to their rural homes for action."

A register is being compiled of the war veterans and the areas they worked during the liberation struggle for fresh deployment. "Most of them, though slightly aged, know these areas and the people well. They are going to revive all our war time structures and to form new ones for the purposes of the campaign."

The party has roped in Brigadier-General Douglas Nyikayaramba into the campaign.

Nyikayaramba, the commander of the army's Mutare-based 3 Brigade, openly told Zanu-PF politburo member Didymus Mutasa that the army had taken over the party's electoral campaign.

"We cannot afford cannot afford to leave the campaign exclusively to politicians who are weak and divided,"

Nyikayaramba told a meeting of traditional chiefs. "We are facing a serious challenge and Zanu-PF must never be allowed to die at the hands of the MDC."

While Zimbabwe eagerly awaits the deployment of SADC's tri-national monitoring team to work with JOMIC, the military has put its plans in high gear to beat the region's effort at subjecting the elections to greater scrutiny.

Their plan has been buoyed by the fact that only three SADC officials are billed to jet into Zimbabwe. Their small number would mean that they would be over-stretched to adequately cover the whole country at once.

According to Kuchekwa, Zanu-PF could easily "light flares" in some urban areas to keep the SADC monitors tied up on side-shows away from the real "campaign".

Zanu-PF hardliners have, since 2008, worked as an informal opposition to the transitional government, disrupting the civilian authority of which Zanu-PF committed itself to be part.

With the help of the military and influential sections of the police, the criminal justice system and other security services, the hardliners have flatly refused to recognise the new Constitutional order and sought to subvert the state at every turn.

From the lessons of 2008 when the military stepped in at the last minute to save Mugabe's political future, the hardliners are working hard ahead of any election to avoid SADC intervention. The next election shall be a product of international relations so they want a perfect a rigging regimen to give Zanu-PF a veer of legitimacy.

The hardliners want to replace Zanu-PF's civilian politicians with military officers in areas, deemed to be emerging MDC strongholds. The strategy risks collapsing Zanu-PF as the party's old guard maintain that rural constituencies remain their safety nets.

Disgruntled Zanu-PF politicians privately argue that the military involvement would ultimately see the demise of the party as it may be impossible to dislodge the MDC, whose support base currently stands at three to one nationwide.

"Many of the 2008 Zanu-PF candidates have been told to stand down for a new breed with liberation war credentials, particularly in what the party calls the battle ground and swing constituencies," said one of the Zanu-PF legislators.

"I have already given up."

To test the strategy, army colonel Charles Muresherwa is already on the ground in Chimanimani working in Mhakwe and Chikwakwa wards. Last week Muresherwa gave MDC supporters a deadline by which they should renounce their membership of the party or face unspecified consequences, according to villagers force-marched to his meetings.

Several homesteads of MDC supporters in Cashel Valley have already been razed and two beasts belonging to the local MDC district chairperson were seized and slaughtered by Zanu-PF youths allegedly at Muresherwa's command after the people refused to sign the so called anti-sanctions petition.

Members of his unit are moving around checking on the political allegiance of the peasants. "If you say you support MDC, they write your name down and promise to get rid of all MDC supporters in the area after 15 July. All the lists of MDC's supporters have been handed over to local headmen and chiefs by Muresherwa," said Stephen Mhlanga, the MDC councillor for ward 19.

Mhlanga said hundreds of MDC supporters have already "defected" to Zanu-PF and are expected to be paraded at a meeting called by Muresherwa on July 15 at Ndangana business centre in Chikwakwa.

"He has organised political rallies where he says soldiers will address the villagers. All the local headmen and chiefs have been instructed to mobilise their subjects to attend," said Mhlanga.

Muresherwa has set up "campaign" bases at Nyambeya primary school, Wengezi and Nhedziwa in Mutambara where Zanu-PF youths are already camped.

In Masvingo, Brigadier-General David Manyika's 4 Brigade have embarked on a series of military exercises, displays and through a derisive choral prowess with songs in praise of Robert Mugabe and Zanu-PF in central Masvingo.

They are not mincing their words: they are drumming up support for Zanu-PF and denouncing the MDC. The Masvingo campaign, buttressed by Jabulani Sibanda rural intimidation antics, is targeting the youths.

Many in their late teens who have been woven into the Zanu-PF structures are normally feted with opaque beer, cigarettes and other mind-forming substances, like dagga.

Urban constituencies remain Zanu-PF's nemesis. Muchena is said to have proposed that the party fields as candidates those who below the age of 30 particularly in Harare to woo the youth vote.

Further, he plans to push for a quota system in the Zanu-PF politburo to bring in more members below the age of 40.

In rural Mashonaland, Zanu-PF is using a mixture of tactics, including religion, to rebuild its tattered structures. Regular church services at Nhowe Shopping Centre, have seen party activists Sheppard Kaserere and Sheppard Zenda hiring sympathetic lay preachers to target suspected MDC, urging them to defect to Zanu-PF "in the name of God".

Several parishes with worshippers drawn from surrounding villages are often threatened to believe the preachers possess divine powers to flush out "unrepentant" MDC supporters among the crowd.

"It would be in the best interest of your personal security to voluntarily repent and join Zanu (PF) before the prophet here present fishes you out," Kaserere warned shoppers.

"All MDC supporters come forward and confess your political 'sins' and swear loyalty to President Robert Mugabe and Zanu-PF. Failure to do so now would attract regrettable consequences."

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