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George Maponga Masvingo Bureau
The ruling Zanu-PF is intensifying preparations for this weekend’s elections to choose a substantive chairperson in Masvingo and bring sanity to the province ahead of next year’s harmonised elections.

The race for the Zanu-PF chairmanship in the province is slated for Saturday and will pit former chair Cde Ezra Chadzamira against war veteran Retired Colonel Mutero Masanganise.

Cde Chadzamira and Retired Col Masanganise are back on ballot papers following inconclusive elections that were held at the end of February.

In that poll, voting only took place in 64 percent of the 408 party districts that were supposed to vote, with polling failing to take place in some areas owing to a number of factors, including bad weather.

The Zanu-PF Politburo ordered a re-run after provincial results released by interim Masvingo chairperson and Politburo member Cde Jorum Gumbo saw Cde Chadzamira leading by 12 393 votes against Retired Colonel Masanganise’s 4 888.

Acting Zanu-PF Masvingo vice chairman Cde Ailess Baloyi yesterday said preparations for Saturday’s elections were going according to plan.

He said voting centres had been designated, with only Cde Chadzamira and Retired Col Masanganise being the candidates who will slug it out for the chairmanship.

‘’Preparations for weekend’s elections to choose the substantive chair for Zanu-PF in Masvingo are proceeding very well and everything is going according to plan and we hope that this time voting will be completed on the same day,’’ said Cde Baloyi.

‘’The interim chair (Cde Gumbo) will determine when deployment of officials who will conduct the voting will take place, but we are quite happy with the level of preparedness for the elections.’’

Cde Baloyi said the ruling party in Masvingo will convene a provincial executive council meeting soon after the substantive chair had been elected.

‘’We will convene a PEC (provincial executive council) meeting where a decision will be made on the fate of some vacant posts in the executive,’’ said Cde Baloyi.

Senior Zanu-PF Politburo member in the province, Cde Josaya Hungwe, expressed confidence that a new substantive ruling party chair for Masvingo will emerge after the weekend poll re-run.

‘’It is our hope that once a new substantive chairman for our party is elected, then real work to ready the party for next year’s elections can start,” he said. “Elections are going ahead on the 6th (Saturday) and we are happy with the progress.’’

Cde Hungwe said the new chair would be tasked with galvanising the ruling party for it to maintain its stranglehold on the Masvingo political landscape, where the revolutionary party swept all the 26 House of Assembly seats in the 2013 polls.