Addressing a provincial women’s league meeting at Mutare Polytechnic last week, Muchinguri said Zanu (PF) should look for other ways to woo voters.
“You do not win elections by beating people up. If you do that, they will not vote for you. So it is very important as a party to look for persuasive ways of winning back our supporters who voted for MDC-T in the previous elections,” said Muchinguri.
“We lost the previous elections because we intimidated people, so this time we are saying we want to persuade those people to come back to Zanu (PF). We want to reclaim all the seats that we lost to MDC-T.”
Muchinguri urged the women to place themselves in strategic positions and challenge the so-called big wigs during the party’s primary elections that are likely to be held in April.
“This time we are going to push for more women to contest in parliamentary seats,” she said.
Muchinguri, who will contest the Mutasa Central constituency, said they were looking at how women in Zanu (PF) could have positions in the forthcoming primary elections.
“It is a thing of the past to impose candidates and sideline women. This year the so-called big wigs will be challenged by women who feel that they are capable of leading the people. We were trounced by the MDC-T in the last elections because of this. So we do not want to continue losing seats to the MDC-T,” she said.
The women called on the government to prosecute and punish all perpetrators of violence and abuse against women as electioneering intensifies.
Miriam Mushaninga from the ZWDT Advocacy Unit said: “Now that there is talk of elections this year we are reminded of the horrible scenes from the March and June 2008 harmonised elections.”
Post published in: News