'Super fund' to ensure support for Mugabe
2013-02-15 18:03
Special Report
Chinese vice premier Wang Yang has urged Zimbabwe to ensure peace and political stability ahead of elections this year.
Cape Town – Zanu-PF is planning a consolidated fund to
bankroll its campaign for national elections so as to ensure candidates also
campaign for President Robert Mugabe, a report said on Friday.
According to the Mail and Guardian, party insiders said the plan
was to bar all party electoral candidates from self-funding their campaigns as
a strategy to force them to rally behind Mugabe, who in some instances in the
2008 poll garnered less votes than some members of parliament in their
constituencies.
The party's national fund had been mooted to control the
campaign activities of candidates, sources said.
In the past Zanu-PF has allowed its candidates to fund their
own activities, a practice that sources say has resulted in some of its
candidates only focusing on their individual campaigns and not selling Mugabe
to the electorate.
"No one will be allowed to personally fund their
elections," the source said. "It's all going to come from one fund
and the condition is that all candidates will campaign for the president,
[together] with their own campaigns for parliamentary and other electoral posts
riding on the president."
Zanu-PF's secretary for administration, Didymus Mutasa, refused
to comment, saying he would not discuss party business with the media.
"That's a Zanu-PF internal affair. Why should Zanu-PF
announce its strategy to the whole world? These are affairs we cannot discuss
with the press," said Mutasa.
Zimbabwe is set to vote for a new constitution on 16 March
before going for harmonised elections in July.
- News24
