Political Reporter

In a bid to mobilise voters ahead of the 2023 elections, the Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC) has suggested establishing Street Champions who would be mandated with the mobilisation of people in their respective streets and compel them to vote for that party.

A source who spoke to this publication said that at a CCC meeting chaired by Nelson Chamisa recently, that party’s interim organising secretary Amos Chibaya admitted that they were facing challenges as far as mobilisation was concerned as people were shunning their programmes. He suggested that CCC should work with landlords who would be given the title of ‘Household Champions’ with their sole mandate being to urge their tenants to vote for CCC in the coming elections.

“At a recent meeting, Chibaya admitted that the party was facing hurdles as far as mobilisation of voters is concerned. He said they were facing challenges in both rural and urban areas. To counter that, Chibaya suggested that the party should compel landlords in urban areas to be commissars of the party with the mandate of urging their tenants to vote for CCC. These landlords would assume the title of Household Champions and would be reporting to a Street Champion,” said the source.

According to the source, the Street Champion would be the most senior CCC member in each street and his task would be to convene and chair a meeting of Household Champions every Wednesday evening.

The source added that at that same meeting, Chamisa directed that all landlords in urban areas should ensure that their tenants were CCC members. He further directed that on the voting day, Households Champions should drive their tenants to go and vote and thereafter report who they would have voted for.

 The source said that this was being done so that the CCC could have their own parallel tabulation of votes while waiting for the official announcements of results by the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC).

Political analyst Terrence Chipwanya said that it was undemocratic for CCC to force people to disclose who they voted for. He added that CCC should abandon its plan of conducting a parallel vote tabulation process as the counting and verification of results was the prerogative of ZEC.

Meanwhile, there are reports that the CCC’s mobilisation strategy code named Mugwazo was failing to gain traction due to serious infighting within that party. It is reported that CCC was also failing to penetrate ZANU PF rural strongholds with that party contemplating reaching out to traditional leaders and traditional healers (masvikoro) to assist them with mobilisation strategy in rural areas.