Zanu-PF intensifies voter registration

Zanu-PF has intensified the voter mobilisation drive, with Mashonaland West Province's Chegutu district yesterday getting a major boost after taking delivery of an additional 51 bicycles for use.

The bicycles were sourced and handed over by Zanu-PF Secretary for Information and Publicity Christopher Mutsvangwa.

They were distributed to various district chairmen from Chegutu East, Chegutu West and Norton.

Speaking during the handover ceremony yesterday, Mutsvangwa said: "This will give mobility boost as we approach the election proclamation date by President Mnangagwa.

"This eventuality is drawing close as the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) finalises its statutory assignment as the Delimitation Commission."

An earlier batch of bicycles was distributed to district party leadership in Mhondoro Mubayira.

Mutsvangwa said he was alive to the fact that Mashonaland West "is the cradle of large-scale cash crop commercial farming. It pioneered Virginia tobacco farming.

"The dispossessed and pauperised local population was not keen to be farm labourers to rapacious white land grabbers after their military conquest of Zimbabwe.

"Malawi, Mozambique and Zambia became the sources of migrant labour. At independence in 1980, the Pan-Africanist ascendant Zanu-PF Government made the bold decision to grant citizenship to all migrant labourers and their descendants.

"That way, Zimbabwe dealt with any seeds that could spawn xenophobic inclinations. Today, President Mnangagwa and his Second Republic are taking yet another noble step. He is keen to see that all farm workers regardless of country background, are issued with national ID," he said.

"This is also a prelude to full inclusion in the democratic processes of a free Zimbabwe. With his dictum ‘no one and no place will be left behind' he is doing all possible to ensure exhaustive voter registration ahead of the 2023 national harmonised elections."

The need to have as many people as possible registering as voters has seen Mutsvangwa and the Chegutu district Zanu-PF leadership launching the bicycles initiative.

Zanu-PF deputy National Political Commissar Webster Shamu, who was also present, urged party members to embrace people joining or rejoining the ruling party.

This comes as more people, especially from opposition parties, seek to join or rejoin the party after being charmed by its developmental programmes.

Zanu-PF Women's League Secretary for Administration, Monica Mutsvangwa, called on voters to elect people that have accountability, such as those in the ruling party.

The event was also attended by several Zanu-PF leaders.