Zanu-PF Midlands strengthens cell, village structures

Zanu-PF has embarked on a cell and village structure building verification programme in the Midlands province as it leaves no stone unturned in its bid to make sure that President Mnangagwa and the party win the 2023 harmonised elections.

Politburo member Simbarashe Mumbengegwi is leading the programme, which began on Saturday. The actual building of cells and verification will be done by branch executives, district executives, and cell chairpersons where necessary.

Politburo members will make use of this opportunity to inspect and assist with the voter registration exercise. They will be assisted by members from the Central Committee, national executive, party's wings, provincial chairman, commissariat, and the provincial secretary for security of all the four wings in their respective provinces.

Yesterday Mumbengegwi held a briefing meeting with the Midlands provincial co-ordinating committee at the Zanu-PF Winery Centre in Gweru where Politburo, National Consultative Assembly, provincial executive committee and district co-ordinating committee members, party districts and branch chairpersons who were deployed to districts and cells in the province.

In his address, Mumbengegwi urged the provincial leadership to ensure all the cells and villages are verified.

"As Zanu-PF leadership in Midlands province, we are leaving no stone unturned in a bid to make sure that President Mnangagwa and the party wins the 2023 harmonised elections by taking advantage of this week-long cell and village building and verification programme," he said.

He said the exercise is important as it fulfils the provision of the party's constitution in terms of building cells on an annual basis, adding that statistics from the cells will be used to come up with a voters' roll that will be used by the party in the primary elections to be held sometime this year but before the general election.

"We're a party that has structures, a party that actually knows the number of its people. We have elections coming this year and before that, we are going to hold primary elections and the information will form the voters' roll," said Mumbengegwi.

"There is no other party in the country that can match our expertise in leadership. For the next week, we are verifying and building our cells and village committees. We want to have new registers with updated statistics. We need to know the number of voters we have as we plan for the elections."

Mumbengegwi urged party members to take advantage of the programme to lure new members and also advocate for new voter registration.

"We know President Mnangagwa is popular and we know that there are people who are not in our structures but will vote for him. So, use this exercise to get such people registered even if they are not in our structures," he said.

"As leaders, we need to make sure that this goes according to plan. District and branch executives will go to the cells and villages and get the registers as we build the cell and village structures. We want to have a lot of people on the ground to make sure everything goes according to plan."

Mumbengegwi said a command post will be set up in every district and in Gweru at the provincial level while the ICT division under the commissariat will help reconcile the information gathered from cells and villages.

"On February 27, the provincial leadership will go to Harare with this information and we must be number 1. Once and for all we must work together so that we deal with the opposition parties, which don't even have structures," he said.

Zanu-PF Midlands provincial chairperson Larry Mavima said the exercise is critical as it will clearly determine what winning percentage the party has come elections.

"We want to write down the people in the structures and there is no need to lie to ourselves when it comes to numbers. This is our party and let's be truthful to each other and to our leaders and President Mnangagwa," he said.

Mavima said there are over 10 000 cells in the province adding that the exercise will reveal if they are real or imaginary.

"So there is a need to account for everyone and also our affiliates so that we increase our chances of burying the opposition once and for all," he said.

Politburo member Engineer Daniel Mackenzie Ncube said Zanu-PF members who are first-time voters should be advised to register with the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (Zec) in order to guarantee the success of the "five million votes" initiative.

"The information from the exercise will also assist us to plot even future activities. We need to have the people in the cells and village registers also register with Zec so that they are able to vote," he said.