Voting in Saturday’s parliamentary and local government by-elections opened as scheduled at 7 AM countrywide, and was running smoothly, the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) said. But ZEC chief elections officer, Utoile Silaigwana, told source turn out, typical in by-elections, was low in all areas.
Voting was taking place in five parliamentary constituencies and several wards countrywide to replace incumbents fired by the opposition Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC) party. The sitting representatives fell victim to the power struggle in the party pitting interim secretary general Sengezo Tshabangu, and then CCC leader Nelson Chamisa.
Chamisa has since quit the party in a huff, but is yet to announce his future plans. Most of the recalls were of Chamisa’s allies in the party, some of whom Tshabangu said were irregularly smuggled onto the CCC’s election ticket in last August’s general elections. The recalls prompted by-elections to refill the positions, and already, the first of the polls have been held.
“We are very happy that as ZEC we prepared for the by-elections very well – the materials were delivered in time, people were trained and deployed smoothly, and so far no hitches have been reported,” Silaigwana said.
“There is, though, low turn out, but this is normally the case with by-elections,” he said.
The main contenders in the by-elections are the ruling Zanu-PF party, and Tshabangu’s CCC faction. Zanu-PF is widely tipped to win most, if not all, of the seats.
Source NewZiana
