Zimbabwe Deputy Prime Minister Thokozani Khupe on voter path
By Jeffrey Muvundusi – Deputy Prime Minister Thokozani Khupe has raised concern over what she termed low voters turnout as the biggest undoing in the quest for the former opposition MDC to remove President Robert Mugabe in power.
Speaking at the Large City Hall in Bulawayo on Sunday where over a thousand party supporters converged, Khupe said a high voter turnout was going to make it difficult for Zanu PF which stands accused of rigging previous elections to repeat what she termed vote
manipulation.
The meeting which was attended by national chairman Lovemore Moyo, Provincial Chairman Gorden Moyo, Sipepa Nkomo and Abednico Bhebhe among others was reportedly convened to audit the Bulawayo provincial party structures which were reportedly in shambles.
This comes hardly a year after the party was marred by indecencies squabbles. “We want to plan against low voter turnout which has been one of our biggest challenges in the past.
We want at least 70 percent of our people to go and cast their votes and this will make it difficult for Zanu PF to manipulate the votes. We all know that Zanu PF is good at that but we are saying with such a margin they won’t succeed,” said Khupe.
The Deputy Prime Minister also raised the issue of the party symbol which she said was likely to confuse its supporters during the voting process as the MDC smaller faction led by Welshman Ncube also uses an almost similar symbol.
This follows reports that emerged soon after the 2008 harmonised presidential elections where some voters were reportedly confused by the somehow similar party symbols during the voting process.
This led to MDC-T crying foul, a move which Khupe enlightened the gathering over the party’s concern in making a clear distinct symbol. “We are going to have a clear distinct symbol that will be totally different from that of other parties. We don’t want a situation where our people gets confused in the ballot box and I promise you we will be introducing a clear distinct symbol for the party,” Khupe told the gathering without elaborating when the new party symbol is going to be unveiled.
