BULAWAYO – Zanu PF surprisingly secured a Bulawayo council seat in Cowdray Park suburb in a by-election held on Saturday.
Kidwell Mujuru is the new councillor for Ward 28 after polling 1,899 votes out ahead of the MDC Alliance’s Nomagugu Mloyi who secured 1,229 votes, the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission announced on Sunday.
Collet Ndlovu, the official MDC Alliance candidate, was beaten into third with 221 votes.
The MDC Alliance fielded two candidates in the contest after Mloyi, who was defeated in a chaotic primary election, refused to withdraw her candidacy. The party was accused of imposing Ndlovu.
Some 18 candidates took part in the by-election held following the death of the MDC Alliance councillor, Hapson Nyasha Ncube, in December last year.
A total of 4,369 votes were cast, 18 of which were spoilt. Ncube won the ward with 8,514 votes in July last year, beating the Zanu PF candidate who polled 3,632 votes.
Political scientist Professor Jonathan Moyo described the result as a “rude wake-up call” for the MDC leadership.
Bulawayo is the MDC’s fortress, but now Zanu PF has secured one of the 29 council seats in the city.
Kholwani Nyathi, editor of The Standard newspaper, however said the by-election result offered a false reading of the MDC Alliance’s strength in Bulawayo.
“Zanu PF has always won by-elections in Bulawayo largely due to voter apathy,” Nyathi said, citing four parliamentary seats Zanu PF won in 2015 in a by-election before the MDC snatched them back in last year’s elections.
“Zanu PF has never retained the wards or seats during general elections. Besides the obvious confusion in the MDC-A, it will be naive to read this as a sign of resurgent Zanu popularity.”
Zenzele Ndebele, a Bulawayo-based journalist, noted that “the majority of the people who voted in the Ward 28 by-election did not vote for Zanu PF” after combining the votes of all the other 17 candidates.
Senior MDC official and former Bulawayo South MP David Coltart said: “There are some serious lessons the MDC needs to learn from this. Zanu PF will always mobilise their core support and rigidly impose one candidate. Once again, we are back to minority rule in this ward in which the overwhelming majority detest Zanu PF.”
Zanu PF went all out to win the by-election, sending Vice President Kembo Mohadi to campaign for Mujuru, a popular local businessman from the neighbouring suburb of Luveve. People who attended Mohadi’s rally were given maize in what the opposition said was vote buying.
