Zanu-PF intensifies outreach programme

ZANU-PF Midlands Province has intensified its outreach programmes to mobilise members to register to vote, as well as strengthening its cell and branch structures ahead of the 2018 harmonised elections.

In an interview, ZANU-PF Midlands provincial spokesperson Cde Cornelius Mpereri said the party was moving around the province verifying its structures and mobilising people to go and register to vote.

Cde Mpereri said they were now focusing on rural areas, particularly those that were inaccessible and ensure that they had robust structures.

“We have already finished with the urban areas and our structures are robust,” he said. “Urban people also have responded overwhelmingly to the ongoing Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) Biometric Voter Registration (BVR) mop-up exercise.

“We are now moving to rural areas and we have covered ground in terms of verifying our structures and also conscientising rural people about the expectations and operations of the new dispensation. There has also been very low turnout for the BVR exercise in rural areas.”

Cde Mpereri said the revolutionary party wanted to ensure a resounding victory in the forthcoming elections.

In Midlands, 686 658 people had registered to vote by Monday against a voter population target of 865 158.

ZEC has surpassed its revised target of five million voters after registering 5 034 923 people.

ZEC embarked on a BVR mop-up exercise, running from January 10 to February 8, to cater for potential registrants who failed to register in the previous exercise.

ZEC reduced its target of seven million registered voters on the BVR system to five million from a projected voter population of 7 224 129, after registering nearly 4,9 million voters in the initial blitz.

The mop-up exercise will target mostly areas where teams from the Registrar-General are deployed, particularly where national identity cards were issued after the first BVR voter registration exercise.

ZEC said the new initiative did not signal the end of the registration process, but a cut-off date that enables it to prepare a provisional voters’ roll.