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Itai Mazire Mashonaland East Correspondent
The MDC Alliance’s Mashonaland East provincial leadership has hailed President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s administration for creating a conducive electoral environment ahead of the 2018 harmonised elections compared to the 2013 electoral period.

MDC Alliance indicated that during Mr Robert Mugabe’s era, the electoral period was marred by political violence, unwarranted arrests of opposition supporters and abuse of State apparatus such as the police.

MDC Alliance provincial administrator Mr Frank Matandirotya said the situation in the country showed a level of maturity and good governance.

“To be honest, our party members are getting clearance from the police to hold meetings and rallies across the province,” he said. “Our supporters are not being hunted down and butchered. They are free to wear their red colours.

“Since the proclamation of the date of the election, we have not received any report of intimidation or abuse from security agents from our party members here in Mashonaland East.

“The playing field is level in terms of us holding our rallies, meetings and even to wear our regalia.”

Mr Matandirotya said the level of peace during the electoral period were tenets of a democratic nation.

Meanwhile, the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) will roll out multi-party meetings in all constituencies in Chipinge to unite the electorate ahead of next month’s elections.

Speaking during an all political parties meeting held at Chipinge Junior School last week, ZEC district elections officer for Chipinge, Mr James Saguru said the multi-party meetings would be decentralised to the grassroots where the election body would also get feedback from the people.

“ZEC is going to roll out more political meetings close to the people in a move aimed at creating dialogue between the electoral body and the people,” said Mr Saguru.

“The purpose of these meetings is to collect feedback from various stakeholders so that we may address pertinent issues before the election date. Just recently, ZEC has been addressing aspiring candidates telling them to preach the gospel of peace in this campaigning period.

“Now we have found it wise to go to the people and explain to them how ZEC will conduct elections. We have also deployed election officers who will represent ZEC in all the five constituencies of Chipinge and will periodically hold multi-party meetings in various wards.”

During the same meeting, ZEC also made available the final voters’ roll to all aspiring candidates.

At the same meeting, police urged aspiring candidates to be ambassadors of peace in their respective areas.