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Joseph Madzimure-Senior Reporter

ZANU PF has set 62 polling stations in the 27 wards where party primaries need to be rerun to select the party candidate for local authority elections, the party’s National Political Commissar Cde Mike Bimha has said. 

The primary reruns are needed because either the boundary changes for wards laid down in the recent delimitation were now followed, or the top two party members seeking the nomination for councillor polled the same number of votes.

Voting is expected to start at 7am and end at 3pm with voting counting expected to be completed by 6pm.

The reruns will complete the party’s selection of candidates for the harmonised elections due in the next few months, after it concluded the primaries for parliamentary representatives and most wards recently.

In an interview yesterday Cde Bimha said all was set for the local authority primary election reruns.

“All the logistics are now in place. We should expect the reruns to be conducted smoothly. We have deployed 248 polling officers to monitor the elections,” he said.

The reruns were largely as a result of confusion arising from delimitation and the new boundaries. Some wards were affected by change of boundaries during the delimitation exercise and no candidates were fielded

In some cases, there was no absolute winner due to equal numbers of votes received by candidates.

In other cases, uncontested winners had pending court cases and the candidates had withdrawn. 

In Harare Metropolitan, reruns will take place in Chitungwiza’s Ward 2 in Zengeza and Ward 28 in Glen Norah of Harare after the contesting candidates pulled same number of votes.

In Mashonaland Central, Ward 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 in Mazowe North were affected by delimitation, and reruns are needed in Ward 24 in Mazowe, and Ward 24 in Mount Darwin and Ward 10 in Bindura. 

In Mashonaland East, reruns will be held in Ward 14 of Murewa, Ward 7 of Mutoko, ward 24 of Seke and Ward 19 of Goromonzi.

In Mashonaland West, reruns will be in Ward 3 Chakari, Ward 6 Mhondoro Ngezi and Ward 4 Kadoma Central.

Two wards were affected in Matabeleland South province, Ward 8 and 10 in Bulilima. The winners have pending court cases and they voluntarily withdrawn from the race.

In Matabeleland North, reruns will be held in Hwange Ward 2 and 4, and Victoria Falls wards 2, 5, 7 and 8.

Re-runs will also be held in ward 13, Umguza. Meanwhile, there are no cases of local authority reruns in Masvingo, Bulawayo Metropolitan, Midlands and Manicaland provinces

The ruling party has announced the final list of the candidates for Parliament after endorsement by the Politburo.

The provinces will administer the reruns primary elections for the local authorities and they will submit the results to the National Command Centre.