adminreportedly forced to appoint candidates in Mwenezi East and West constituencies after struggling to attract more aspiring candidates to contest the forthcoming elections on its ticket. Only one candidate had submitted papers to represent the MDC-T in each of the two constituencies of Mwenezi East and West forcing the party to declare them official party parliamentary candidates in the next elections.
In Mwenezi West the MDC-T appointed Mr Innocent Nsingo to represent it while Mr Phillip Marufu was appointed for Mwenezi East.
Sources in the party yesterday said the MDC-T failed to attract aspiring candidates in Mwenezi and Chiredzi districts, which are Zanu-PF strongholds despite having dangled financial and material incentives.
“No primary elections took place in Mwenezi East and West because only one candidate came up in each of the two constituencies.
“It was no longer possible to conduct primary elections and we just ended up declaring those candidates our official parliamentary candidates for the next elections,’’ said a party source in Masvingo.
Chiredzi South and Chiredzi North primary elections were abandoned because the MDC-T has no visible structures in place.
“In Chiredzi South and North we failed to come up with candidates because the party does not have structures which would have constituted electoral colleges. These would have voted in the primary elections,’’ added an MDC-T insider in Masvingo.
It is alleged that the MDC-T provincial executive in Masvingo had on several occasions tried to set up structures and called for meetings in Chiredzi North and South.
These have been aborted due to poor attendance. MDC-T insiders also said party representatives from Chiredzi North and South districts have attended provincial council meetings on only few occasions over the past 10 years, an indication that the party had failed to penetrate the Zanu-PF stronghold of Chiredzi.
MDC-T Masvingo provincial secretary Mr Tongai Matutu said there was nothing peculiar in his party’s failure to conduct primary elections and declaring one candidate the winner citing the case of Mwenezi.
“It’s not new that where there is no contestation primary elections are not held. We have constituencies where we only had one candidate who was not challenged.
“This happened in Mwenezi and in that case there was no point for primary elections to be held. There is nothing unique about this,’’ he said.
The MDC-T held primary elections in Masvingo at the weekend which saw some party heavyweights falling by the wayside after failing the confirmation exercise.
Online Reporter