Zanu-PF Bulawayo restructuring bearing fruit

THE decision by Zanu-PF to dissolve the two provinces of Bulawayo and Harare is beginning to bear fruit following the revolutionary party's victory in the Ward 28 by election in Bulawayo, a senior official has said.

 Zanu-PF candidate, Kidwell Mujuru, romped to victory in the by-election held at the weekend after garnering 1 899 votes, to beat his closest challenger Ms Nomagugu Mloyi of MDC-Alliance by 670 votes.

Ms Mloyi got 1 229 votes in the Cowdray Park by-election while her colleague Mr Collet Ndlovu garnered only 221 votes after the Nelson Chamisa-led opposition party fielded two candidates.

Party secretary for administration, Dr Obert Mpofu said because of the restructuring, Zanu-PF is beginning to make strides in urban centres where it performed badly in previous times.  

President Mnangagwa early last month dissolved Bulawayo and Harare provinces and appointed his deputies Cdes Kembo Mohadi and Constantino Chiwenga to lead the restructuring exercise in the respective provinces.  

"This is a very exciting development following the decision by the party to dissolve and restructure the two urban provinces of Bulawayo and Harare. These developments are confirmation that we made the right decision to restructure and revamp those provinces and we are beginning to record success after years of bad performances in the urban areas," said Dr Mpofu.

 He said the restructuring exercise has been received with a lot of excitement by the people willing to join the party.

In the old dispensation, Dr Mpofu said, some leaders would turn a blind eye to ill practices affecting the party as long as they managed to entrench themselves in positions, a culture that has been discarded by the new dispensation.  

"We call upon cadres in the party to co-operate with the restructuring teams in Bulawayo led by Vice President (Kembo) Mohadi. The restructuring is not targeting anyone but is aimed at revamping the party. We know that there are some who used to benefit from the chaos of the old and would want to throw spanners in the works but our message to those characters is clear, the party will not tolerate such behaviour," he said.

"To the opposition we say, the honey moon is over. Gone are the days of free reign in the urban centres as we are making strides in the urban centres and the Cowdray Park victory marks that shift".  

Addressing Zanu-PF supporters at the Davies Hall party provincial headquarters a week before the by election, VP Mohadi said the restructuring would reinvigorate the party.  

"We are going to reinvigorate the party by coming up with structures, so far I'm told that 104 structures have been done but I'm told that the target is that it should be 1 240 but we are very far from the target so it is indeed plausible that we extend it so that we can get the cells.

"We can't win an election if we don't have the cells. I don't know what has gone wrong. What is the problem? Zanu-PF has been there since 1957? it doesn't matter whether it changed names to what is called Zanu-PF today but our political movement started long back," said VP Mohadi.

"We are still the same people, what happened, a mafikizolo has come and taken the people in Bulawayo and we have nothing. There must be something wrong, we should reflect on ourselves, we are not doing our work."