Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC) candidate for the Tsholotsho South Constituency in next month’s by-elections, Tapson Nganunu Sibanda, has said the recent name change by his party will not confuse voters.
Then Nelson Chamisa-led MDC Alliance announced a few days before the sitting of the Nomination Court last month that it would contest the mini polls under the new name – CCC.
The party dumped the Alliance name after its rival faction led by Douglas Mwonzora claimed ownership and announced it will contest the by-elections using the same.
Zimbabwe will on March 26 hold by-elections to fill in 28 parliamentary and over 100 council seats and 16 political parties including the ruling ZANU-PF and other opposition parties will lock horns.
Nganunu will battle it out with Bongani Moyo (Independent ), Leonard Mthombeni (ZAPU), and Musa Ncube (ZANU PF).
Speaking to CITE Monday over the phone from Tsholotsho where he is campaigning, Sibanda said his supporters “understand the party very well.”
“They understand it very well,” Sibanda told CITE.
“You will realise that when the party changed its name, it was a message to the people in anticipation. People had long been waiting for that name. They had been following events on the ground.”
He said there was no way his party could have gone to the by-elections using the MDC Alliance name, and they had prepared supporters for that well in advance.
“We had been telling them (supporters) that come election time, obviously we will have a new name,” explained Sibanda.
“So it was just a matter of announcing the name and flooding it in the social media. They are picking it, yes you might have some challenges with the elderly here and there but that’s why we are out on the ground trying to make people understand.”
He added: “But they are happy with the new name anyway because that’s the only solution to getting out of the confusion that we have been seeing over the years.”
