News / National
'Youth a deciding factor in next election'
25 Oct 2017 at 08:36hrs | Views
THE MDC has stepped up its campaign to have thousands of youths register for next year's elections by reminding them that they hold keys to who becomes the country's leader after the eagerly-anticipated plebiscite.
South Africa-based youth wing secretary-general of the Welshman Ncube-led MDC, Descent Collins Bajila, said next year's elections would be decided by the youth vote - joining President Robert Mugabe and MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai who have both urged the youths to register for the crucial polls.
"There is no doubt that the next elections will be dominated by fresh voters, people who might have registered before and never voted or people who are coming to vote for the very first time.
"The concentration by Zanu-PF on young voters is not misplaced. They really know what they are doing because now the youth factor counts. However, it is a test on young people on whether they can sell their future to Zanu-PF on account of short-term freebies," Bajila told Southern News.
"We know that campaigns will be around the distribution of housing stands, land, mining pegs and at a later stage things like Chinese-made torches and flasks will be used but we are hopeful that young people are going to understand that these things won't last at some point they might lose the land or they will not be able to make anything productive out of it because the economy will not allow them to buy implements on their own.
"We will make it clear to young people that the Zanu-PF promise for more jobs will lead to less jobs. The promise for money will lead to cash shortages and that the future cannot be built on account of freebies," added Bajila.
He said there was need for the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (Zec) to intensify its registration awareness campaigns.
Zec opened the three-month voter registration exercise where it is targeting to have seven million people registered for next year's elections.
So far the national elections management body has registered one million voters.
For the first time, Zec is using the biometric voter registration (BVR) to determine who votes in the crucial polls.
South Africa-based youth wing secretary-general of the Welshman Ncube-led MDC, Descent Collins Bajila, said next year's elections would be decided by the youth vote - joining President Robert Mugabe and MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai who have both urged the youths to register for the crucial polls.
"There is no doubt that the next elections will be dominated by fresh voters, people who might have registered before and never voted or people who are coming to vote for the very first time.
"The concentration by Zanu-PF on young voters is not misplaced. They really know what they are doing because now the youth factor counts. However, it is a test on young people on whether they can sell their future to Zanu-PF on account of short-term freebies," Bajila told Southern News.
"We know that campaigns will be around the distribution of housing stands, land, mining pegs and at a later stage things like Chinese-made torches and flasks will be used but we are hopeful that young people are going to understand that these things won't last at some point they might lose the land or they will not be able to make anything productive out of it because the economy will not allow them to buy implements on their own.
"We will make it clear to young people that the Zanu-PF promise for more jobs will lead to less jobs. The promise for money will lead to cash shortages and that the future cannot be built on account of freebies," added Bajila.
He said there was need for the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (Zec) to intensify its registration awareness campaigns.
Zec opened the three-month voter registration exercise where it is targeting to have seven million people registered for next year's elections.
So far the national elections management body has registered one million voters.
For the first time, Zec is using the biometric voter registration (BVR) to determine who votes in the crucial polls.
Source - dailynews
