Staff Reporter
MDC-Alliance National Secretary for Elections Ian Makone has admitted that the opposition party is fast losing its support base especially in the urban areas where the Government has taken over the rehabilitation of roads, from the MDC-A led councils.
Speaking during an Elections Department meeting held in Bulawayo recently, Makone revealed that despite all the mobilisation strategies and efforts by the opposition party, the support level seems to be declining.and that there was need to come up with new strategies.
A source within the opposition party who attended the meeting told this publication that the party was worried about the decline in support base including that of the diaspora.
“We have tried and we are still trying to mobilise the electorate ahead of the 2023 elections but it seems we are losing it somewhere. We have tried to rope in teachers through the Amalgamated Rural Teachers of Zimbabwe ARTUZ) as opinion leaders, we have tried to engage the diaspora and we are currently trying to penetrate the rural areas. However, all strategies in our basket are not yielding the expected results.
“Here in Bulawayo for example in 2008, election results show that we had 78 percent of the electorate and in 2018 we had 45 percent. This decline is worrisome, and something needs to be done in terms of re-strategising and mobilising the electorate ahead of the 2023 harmonised election,” he said.
The source further told this publication that poor service delivery by the opposition-led councils countrywide was contributing to the dwindling party support base.
“The electorate is fed up with MDC-Alliance councillors and the House of Assembly members especially in urban areas where service delivery by the opposition-led councils is not going well. For a long time, residents have been denied access to clean water, garbage is not being collected, exposing them to diseases and roads were not being rehabilitated before the government took over. In short, the urban electorate no longer has confidence in the MDC-Alliance leadership,” said the source.
In April this year, the Government took over rehabilitation of some roads in urban centres after the country’s road network was declared a state of disaster with most of the roads having become untrafficable under the watchful eye of the MDC-Alliance councillors.
Despite hyping of the current rural penetration efforts by MDC-Alliance leader Nelson Chamisa, sources within the opposition party admit that the mobilisation efforts are not bearing fruits as only a handful of people were attending Chamisa’s meetings.
In the 2018 general elections, the MDC-Alliance led by Chamisa won 64 parliamentary seats out of the 210 contestable seats in the country’s National Assembly. The ruling Zanu PF party amassed a total of 144 seats.
Since then, the MDC Alliance has been suffering substantial defeats in Parliament, with controversial bills sailing through given Zanu-PF’s majority. Most of the MDC-Alliance councillors and House of Assembly members have also been re-called by the MDC-T, further crippling the opposition party.
