The Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC) has banned its candidates from campaigning before the candidate selection processes are over.
This was announced by the party’s Deputy National spokesperson, Ostallos Siziba at a press conference in Harare on Thursday.
“Yes, there are people who have been confirmed but that does now mean that these people can begin to campaign because you can only campaign externally whilst you have been confirmed in the official candidate list that the party is going to produce and that is going to be the final list of our A team that we are going to make the nation aware and that we are going to be making citizens aware in terms of whom they should vote for,” he said.
Siziba said once the successful candidates have been announced they will be “given the official mandate to begin their campaigns.”
He said it was an offence for aspiring candidates to launch their campaigns and “it can attract problems for any individuals who might be moving around”.
“We have heard reports of people developing posters and flyers and messages, some are changing their steps, some are marrying second wives, some second husbands because of the motivation that they will be nominated to be candidates, the process is not yet over, this is not an event where you are nominated and you think you are a candidate, this is a process, so after the process is over of its four stages, then someone else can be confirmed and after the independent electoral body can publicly announce to Zimbabweans before everyone that these are the final list of citizens that came from the people.”
Siziba added that the delay in announcing the successful candidates was a strategy to shield their candidates from intimidation.
“There was an intention to deliberately try and go to other candidates to intimidate them from being candidates. We are aware of this, it happened before when candidates get intimidated and they are stopped from contesting under our movement, thus why for the protection of our candidates, for the protections of our strategic processes, we are only going to announce at the final stages which is the candidate list, only at that time we are going to give the final list, before then, the list belongs to the commission and the relevant department that have been given responsibility to conduct our process,” he said.
