Johannesburg - For the first time since Zimbabwe’s independence Zanu-PF MPs may soon be elected to parliament to represent second city, Bulawayo, even though the city largely detests President Robert Mugabe and his government.
There are five parliamentary vacancies in Bulawayo and by-elections will be held on June 10.
These seats had been won by the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) since 2000, but the party is now boycotting all elections.
The Zimbabwe African People’s Union (Zapu) has come in from the cold and is putting up candidates in Bulawayo.
Zapu, the first opposition party after 1980 independence elections, was crushed by the army and eventually merged with Zanu-PF nearly 28 years ago.
Zapu president Dumiso Dabengwa said he had “no option” but to field candidates for by-elections for the Bulawayo seats.
Head of intelligence for Zapu during the 1970s liberation war, Dabengwa said this week that he was shocked when all factions of the MDC decided to boycott next week’s by-elections.
He said Zanu-PF never won any parliamentary seats in Bulawayo until Zapu was bullied into the unity government.
“Those MPs then were all Zapu people,” Dabengwa said.
“So we had to put up candidates now.”
There will be 13 by-elections on June 10, most of them in MDC strongholds in Harare. “Unfortunately our people in Harare were a bit slow and so we are not contesting those seats,” Dabengwa said.
Jenni Williams, one of the leaders of activist group, Women of Zimbabwe Arise, says Zanu-PF is “working hard” in the Bulawayo constituencies.
“It seems they are doing door-to door and seem to have resources. And elections these days are about resources.”
There are some “independents’ standing in the by-elections who may be silent MDC members or supporters, but observers say they appear to be short of cash and will divide the anti Zanu-PF vote.
Zapu went to court to secure an electronic version of the voters roll - denied to political parties at the last elections in 2013 - and Dabengwa says he has experts examining it.
In the disputed 2013 elections which delivered more then a two-thirds majority to Zanu-PF, there were many allegations of rigging, most of which could not be proved quickly enough for court action, because no electronic voters roll was available.
Dabengwa said he remained concerned that voting would be rigged at these by-elections.
“We hear bus loads of people are being sent from Harare to vote in Bulawayo.
“The grapevine says there is a plan to have 2 000 (unregistered) additional voters in each constituency in Bulawayo who will be allowed to vote.”
Zanu-PF spokesman Simon Khaya Moyo, a pre-unity government Zapu member, was not available for comment.
The large number of by-elections next week emerged after MDC president Morgan Tsvangirai asked parliament to expel a clutch of his colleagues who rebelled against him last year.
Zimbabwe does not allow floor crossing and Tsvangirai maintained the expelled MPs were no longer members of the MDC.
The Zanu-PF-controlled parliament was happy to expel them, including some founding members of the MDC.
However, the expelled MPs still call themselves MDC and have not registered as a new political party, but refer to themselves as “MDC Renewal”.
All MDC parties say they are boycotting the polls next week because electoral reforms included in the 2013 constitution are not in place.
They say the Zimbabwe Election Commission remains partisan and inefficient.
Independent Foreign Service