Seventeen political parties have registered with the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) to participate in the first ever harmonised elections in Zimbabwe, with more than 250 candidates vying for the House of Assembly seats. Then there are Senetorial and LOcal Government candidates whose numbers also run into their several hundreds.
Campaign materials being sought from printers include posters, T-shirts, party manifestos, flyers and, in the case of one political party, a newspaper.
On the other hand newspapers and the sole broadcasting service, Zimbabwe Broadcasting Holdings, have also claimed their fair share of the piece of the pie, courtesy of ZEC’s directive for all political parties to be given equal opportunity to flight advertisements in any media of their choice without discrimination.
A survey by CAJ News revealed that most printing companies had experienced a high surge in business in comparison with the lean pre-campaigning period when business was said to be at its lowest ebb.
Although most companies were not at liberty to divulge how much they have racked in during this busy period, those visited admitted business had never been as good.
At one company in Msasa, about 10km east of Harare’s Central Business District, workers said two extra shifts had since been introduced to ease pressure of work.
“We wish these elections could be held so often… they bring forth considerable profits to us and, in turn, a salary increment on our part”, said Shaun Chingwaru, a printing journeyperson with Printcon.
It costs about Z2,5 trillion to have a batch of 50 000 A3 posters printed in full colour while an advertiser has to fork out an amount in the region of Z12 billion for a full page 3 spot-colour advertisement.
Wall surfaces in the cities, towns and residential areas of the country are littered with pasted posters of candidates vying for the four positions (Presidential, House of Assembly, Senetorial and Local Government) in the country’s elections due march 29-
Post published in: Economy