ople’s Party, Zapu FP and Zanu, who all collectively accuse Mugabe of stealing previous elections.
The nationwide council polls, expected to prelude the crunch harmonized March legislative and presidential polls, come amid a deepening economic and food
crisis in the southern African country and opposition charges of intimidation and violence by ruling party supporters.
The opposition says thousands of its voters failed to register in the just ended eight-week mobile voter registration exercise through intimidation and gerrymandering.
While the opposition is largely expected to retain urban council seats across the country’s metropolis where opposition mayors have been kicked out and replaced by inept ruling party commissions, political analysts say Zanu (PF) has hatched a broad strategy to bar the opposition from rural areas, the government’s traditional power base.
”Its strategy is to maintain a strong control there, and that is why they have been more vicious there,” said University of Zimbabwe political scientist. ”They have lost a number of key urban areas to the MDC during previous local government (polls). For Zanu (PF) to lose the rural council elections would be like a confirmation that Mugabe will definitely lose the presidential elections in March,” he added.
Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa has rejected opposition allegations the ruling party was using intimidation and violence in the run-up to the January vote. He also dismissed opposition allegations of disenfranchisement in the just-ended voter registration exercise, saying opposition supporters were still free to register and cast their ballot because the Registrar of Voters was still accepting new names on the voters register.
The MDC currently has full municipal control of all cities across Zimbabwe, and contends it could have won even rural constituencies if the campaign had been free of political violence.
But Zanu (PF) officials say the MDC is no longer the political force it was seven years ago because Zimbabwe’s majority black people see it as a front for minority white interests.
MDC spokesman Nelson Chamisa says his party would defy tough restrictions on rallies and urged labour and civic groups to join a new defiance campaign against Mugabe.
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