Referring to the Lupane scandal where a letter from the Minister Of Health and Child Welfare Dr Moyo was directing NatPham to give medicines to Lupane a move that was seen as vote-buying, Zimbabwe Elections Support Network (ZESN) has come out to condemn the alleged move by the ruling party to use things that are supposed to benefit all people with no string attached.
Speaking to The Standard ZESN said:
The network does not condone the trend of vote-buying using food aid and other resources meant to benefit all citizens with no affiliation to a political party in line with the constitution. It is, therefore, disturbing to note that essential drugs and medicines, which should be readily available and accessible to every citizen, are now allegedly tied to a political party’s campaign for a National Assembly seat.
Critical for a free and fair electoral context is a pre-election environment devoid of irregularities and malpractices such as vote-buying and the misuse of government resources where food aid such as maize and rice and other resources are being distributed along partisan lines.
This inevitably creates an uneven playing field for political contestants
More: The Standard