Ousted Ntabazinduna Chief, Felix Nhlanhlayamangwe Ndiweni, says the upcoming 26 March by-elections will be rigged in favour of ZANU PF, with the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) and the Zimbabwe Republic Police (ZRP) allegedly showing bias towards the ruling party.
In an eight-page report, Ndiweni, who is in exile in Britain after he was dethroned by President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s government in 2019, said the same kind of rigging witnessed recently during ZANU PF primaries will manifest in the by-elections. He said:
What an event that should be captured and put onto the big screen. We observed ZANU PF members crying out loud about vote-rigging by some of their very own.
Cries over stuffed ballot boxes and shouts over missing ballot boxes. There were shouts of party election officials being stranded without fuel so that they could not officiate during the vote counting.
(There were) shouts of influential candidates letting loose the Zimbabwe Republic Police to beat up whole villages shouts over fist fights at venues, shouts over candidates bribing voters and officials.
There were shouts over candidates that are parachuted into a constituency having not been chosen by the local people as their candidate… This list is very long.
ZANU PF held primary elections in all provinces with vacant wards and parliament seats amid reports of massive rigging and other electoral malpractices.
28 parliamentary seats and 105 council seats are up for grabs in the 26 March by-elections emanating from recalls and deaths.