The Freedom of Rights Under Sovereign (FORUS) political party, says its potential candidates will be expected to first present their manifestos to the voters who will then rate and nominate capable individuals to contest in the upcoming elections
FORUS party national spokesperson, Thandazani Moyo, said the party would field candidates in all the vacant wards and constituencies.
“The party is very much ready for the coming 2023 elections and we are going to field candidates in each and every ward and constituency. We are also going to be fielding senators and we have already selected our presidential candidate,” he said in an interview with CITE.
Moyo said the party’s presidential candidate will be Ireen Manyara Muyenziwa, who becomes the latest female candidate running for presidency.
“Right now, we are very busy in each ward and every constituency. Our leadership ranging from ward, constituency, district, provincial and national structures are making sure all the vacancies will be filled including those in the women’s and youth quota,” he said.
The national spokesperson noted that candidates must first present their manifestos to voters, who will then rate and nominate them to represent FORUS in the future elections.
“Our candidate selection process is a little bit unique to say the community is actually given an opportunity to have a conversation with candidates before they even select them. We have said each and every aspiring candidate who is supposed to be a member of FORUS should present him or herself to the populace and be interrogated in terms of what he or she is offering on the table to the constituency or ward manifesto because we are dealing with a Zimbabwean problem,” Moyo said.
Moyo said FORUS was using a bottom-up approach, as communities would have the opportunity to know the candidates who will represent them.
“For instance, in Chipinge, we identify the problems and say this is the manifesto for Chipinge and this is how we are going to solve the problems in Chipinge. When we go to Lupane, we will do the same, same as in Gokwe. We will identify the problems that people are facing, provide solutions and come up with formidable home grown organic manifesto for the communities,” he said.
“This is our point of departure when it comes to the candidate section because we are making sure each and every candidate is responding to the needs and problems of people on the ground so that we can be able to address the issues of incompetence, lack of service delivery on the ground.”
Moyo said FORUS believed their selection method was a suitable criteria to choose candidates as voters would have the chance to know the person they are voting for.
“Using the criteria of the community to interrogate a candidate first before selecting that person into any office is the best way to go because the community is able to know who exactly they are dealing with, who is going to be representing them,” he said.
