Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC) has accused Zanu PF of vote buying after the ruling party donated various goods to locals during a rally on Saturday.
The rally which was graced by President Emmerson Mnangagwa was held at Siabuwa Business Centre.
In an interview with CITE, CCC Binga North Constituency candidate Prince Dubeko Sibanda accused the ruling party of using state resources to woo voters.
“There were more than 100 buses, it’s not only fertilizers, even maize they are distributing it to their party members, bicycles, there is a lot of vote-buying that is taking place. We see it and we are aware of it, that is the strategy of Zanu-PF, they don’t have any other strategy, they are always politically immature even though it’s an old political party, they don’t understand politics,” said Sibanda.
“As it is they are busy grading the roads which people don’t want, so there is a lot of votes buying happening but we are not complaining because we know we will win. We are not even worried about vote-buying instead we are happy for the chiefs who received fish rigs because we don’t wish for the chiefs to be poor but the problem is that they think we don’t want the chiefs to eat, yet we want everyone in the country to eat,” he said.
Villagers who spoke to this publication said there was a lot activity following the Zanu PF rally.
“In Binga North Constituency we are having by-elections since the seating MP Prince Dubeko was recalled, there is a lot of political noise now, last week, the President was in Siabuwa and we witnessed more than 80 ZUPCO buses that were transporting villagers and supporters but before election time there were only two buses operating in the Binga route, but this time the whole of Binga was full of ZUPCO buses,” said one villager.
The villagers also added that they also received farming inputs including Compound D fertiliser, “this is more of a political tool for campaigning, how can we receive Compound D when it’s almost harvest time.”
“Two weeks ago, we also had officials from the Women’s Bank saying they are offering loans to the people, even the village heads were promised that if they vote for the ruling party they were going to be put into a payroll since most of them are not yet paid,” he said.
“To us, we see that as a vote-buying, how can you pay only those in Binga instead of every chief nationwide.”
Meanwhile, Zanu-PF aspiring candidate, Kudakwashe Munsaka said they know that the opposition party always comes up with such claims whenever they feel the heat.
“Firstly, the Government has been giving people fertilizer for Pvumvudza, so they cannot stop now because there is an election,” said Munsaka.
“As for the buses, this is not anything new, people in Binga don’t expect to have many buses, we only needed an additional two buses but the President added four more buses to Binga and you don’t ask for a bus without a business if we get 10 buses who is going to pay for the loan when the buses are just idle, three buses are enough.”
