The ManicaPost
Post Reporters
THE ruling Zanu PF has maintained its tight grip in Manicaland Province as preliminary results for National Assembly and local authority harmonised elections show that the revolutionary party is commanding an unassailable lead in the province.
Although all results were yet to be announced at the time of going to print yesterday (Thursday) night, collated results from the 26 National Assembly constituencies and 260 wards in Manicaland showed that Zanu PF had an upper hand against all the opposition parties.
The opposition Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC) was trailing way behind, while other opposition parties dismally failed to win the hearts of the electorate.
Zanu PF maintained its unquestionable dominance in rural constituencies and local authority wards, while CCC was dominant in its traditional urban constituencies and urban council wards.
ZEC Manicaland Provincial Elections Officer, Mr Thompson Chiwereweshe, yesterday told The Manica Post that they were still waiting for the submission of all National Assembly and local authorities results.
“We are yet to receive all results from the constituencies and wards. We expect the first results from the Mutare constituencies due to their proximity to the command centre.
“We are expecting to start announcing the results later tonight (Thursday night), but if you can move around all polling stations across the province you will see that the local authority and National Assembly results are already displayed outside as required by the law.
“We are happy with how the elections were conducted. Yes, some glitches were experienced here and there, but we managed to overcome them and voting was done in all of Manicaland’s constituencies and wards.
The elections were conducted in a peaceful environment and we want to commend the electorate for that,” said Mr Chiwereweshe.
The Manica Post teams deployed to all of the province’s seven districts established that the ruling party had bagged more than half of the 26 constituencies in Manicaland.
According to the preliminary results, the ruling party maintained its dominance in Buhera, Chipinge, Makoni and Nyanga, while the opposition CCC won in urban constituencies.
In Makoni South at local authority level, Zanu PF took a commanding lead in nine of the 12 wards.
In Nyazura Ward, there was no outright winner as both Zanu PF and CCC candidates were tied at 950 votes each.
In Makoni West, Zanu PF trounced CCC in the local authourity, National Assembly and Presidential contests.
By 4pm yesterday, the results for wards six, 32, 34 and 38 for Headlands Constituency’s had been confirmed in favour of Zanu PF candidates.
While results for the other four wards for the constituency were still trickling in, The Manica Post understands that the ruling party won at 50 of the 51 polling stations in the constituency.
However, three ruling party candidates narrowly lost at Mt Carmel High School, which is under Headlands Township.
In Makoni North, Zanu PF swept all the nine wards, that is Wards one, two, three, four, five, nine, 10, 35 and 36.
In Makoni Central, CCC maintained its hegemony after winning in Wards one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine and 10.
Zanu PF’s Makoni Rural District Council Ward Two candidate, Cde Clever Chimuse retained his seat, while results of the other three rural wards were still trickling in.
At the time of going to print, CCC was leading in Makoni Central by a slim margin.
In Nyanga, 15 out of the 31 wards had declared their results as of yesterday morning.
The Nyanga District Elections Officer, Mr Maxwell Sunduza said: “We have 15 councillors who have been declared winners. We are still waiting for more results. We could not open polling stations in two wards and they opened today (Thursday) and people are voting now. Hopefully by the end of the day everything would have been finalised.
“The political environment was calm and everybody exercised his or her right to vote freely. People are happy, there were no challenges in Nyanga and l am sure the will of the people will prevail,” he said.
Chimanimani West Constituency Elections Officer, Mr Donald Kutseza said of the constituency’s 13 wards, they were yet to receive results from wards 22 and 27, which were previously in Mutare West Constituency before the delimitation process.
“The two wards are hard to reach areas in Himalaya and Chipendeke, hence the delay. Most polling stations in the two wards started voting on Thursday at 12-midday, and the latest received their ballot papers around 2pm.
“We are patiently waiting for them to finish the process, and we will have declared the winner by mid-day tomorrow (Friday). However, voting has been peaceful in our 13 wards and we have not recorded any acts of violence,” he said.
In Chipinge South and Mutema-Musikavanhu Constituencies, voting went on well without any scenes of violence, coercion or intimidation reported.
All polling stations were open for voters on voting day, even though voting was delayed in a few polling stations due to late arrival of voting material.
Long queues that were witnessed at most polling stations when voting begun in the morning disappeared in the afternoon as polling officers diligently went about their duties in serving the electorate.
The counting of ballots was complete in most polling stations around 10pm on Wednesday and results were instantly pasted outside respective polling stations.
Scenes of jubilant local authority elections winners and their supporters were witnessed across the province as the results were pasted outside the polling stations.
