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Munyaradzi Musiiwa Midlands Correspondent
Zanu-PF Mberengwa North National Assembly member-elect Cde Tafanana Zhou is ecstatic after the constituency delivered a record widest margin for the presidential vote in the entire Midlands province.

Mberengwa North had the widest margin for both the parliamentary and presidential votes in the province.

President-elect Mnangagwa garnered 18 392 votes in the constituency, while his nearest rival Mr Nelson Chamisa had a paltry 3 449 votes.

Cde Zhou expressed gratitude to the electorate in his constituency for uniformly voting for both the President and himself.

“I feel very much motivated to continue serving the party and my constituency diligently,” he said. “People in the constituency, including myself are very loyal to the party, hence they had a uniform vote.

“The constituency had the widest margin for both the parliamentary and presidential vote. We had a margin of about 15 000 which is the highest in the province.”

President-elect Mnangagwa’s former constituency, Chirumhanzu-Zibagwe was second in the Midlands with a margin of close to 13 000 votes.

President-elect Mnangagwa had 19 866 votes in the constituency, while Mr Chamisa had 7 106.

In some constituencies in the province, a Zanu-PF MP would win, but the President would lose.

For instance in Gokwe Central, President-elect Mnangagwa had 11 263 votes, while Mr Chamisa had 11 588.

In the Midlands province, President-elect Mnangagwa had a total of 324 274 votes while Mr Chamisa had 216 022.

Zanu-PF Midlands provincial chairperson Engineer Daniel McKenzie Ncube said although the party won in the province, he expected it to do better.

“We had 26 constituencies before the elections and now we have 22, which means we didn’t do quite well since we wanted all the constituencies in the province,” he said. “We lost two constituencies in Kwekwe, one Redcliff, two in Gweru, and Chiwundura.

“But, we are going to rise to the challenge and work towards retaining the lost constituencies.”