ZANU PF says politburo member Jonathan Moyo is to blame for his loss of the Tsholotsho North seat in last month’s elections, saying he was not visible on the ground most of the time.
Report by Nduduzo Tshuma
Moyo yesterday filed a petition with the Electoral Court demanding a fresh election within 90 days citing among other reasons that voters were turned away.
The former Information minister lost his Tsholotsho North House of Assembly seat to MDC-T candidate Roselene Nkomo before launching an unsuccessful bid to have a recount in the constituency.
The party’s Matabeleland North provincial structures met at the weekend to conduct a post-mortem of the polls, where Zanu PF won seven out of 13 seats in the province.
Zanu PF Matabeleland North provincial chairperson Richard Moyo said the meeting resolved that the party leaders, where the party lost, were not working well together.
“In some constituencies, the party leadership was not united and were not working together, they did not campaign effectively, hence the loss,” he said.
“In Tsholotsho North, they delayed in going to the people, their campaign was delayed.
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“The people were yearning for the candidate, but perhaps the candidate was busy at national level.”
Moyo said the party would attend to its deficiencies to make sure that the province would perform better than they did in the recent elections.
Repeated efforts to get a comment from Jonathan Moyo were fruitless as his mobile phone continuously rang without being answered.
After his electoral defeat, the Zanu PF strategist wrote to the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (Zec) requesting a recount in the constituency, citing a number of irregularities in the manner that the votes were counted.
However, the Bulawayo High Court set aside the decision by Zec to recount votes in the constituency.
Zec had scheduled the recount for August 4 before Nkomo successfully sought a High Court interdict.
On August 8, High Court judge Justice Lawrence Kamocha blocked the recount on the basis that the decision would be in violation of sections 67 (A) and 70 (4) of the Electoral Court.
