20 political parties who participated in the July 30 harmonised elections have found the going tough with national assembly results announced so far dominated by Zanu PF and MDC Alliance.
The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) has thus far released 152 of the 210 parliamentary results and twenty parties have not registered a win in any of those, pointing to a binary house of assembly save for Themba Mliswa who contested as an independent candidate and National Patriotic Front who won the Kwekwe Central seat.
The ruling party Zanu PF is headed for a two thirds majority in the House of Assembly after bagging 109 seats to MDC Alliance’s 41.
Of the 20 smaller parties People’s Rainbow Coalition led by Joice Mujuru and MDC-T Khupe led by Dr Thokozani Khupe performed better than the others in some constituencies getting as much as 3000 votes.
Mujuru looked set to cause an upset in her home province, Mashonaland Central while Khupe attracted a fair following in Matebeleland.
However, the two, probably the most recognised of the four women presidential candidates, have come short of registering any victory.
Despite sharing the humiliation of failing to pick up any seat so far, Mujuru and Khupe have a lot in common, politically.
Both women were deputies, at the same time, to two of the country’s most powerful politicians, Mugabe and the late MDC-T leader, Morgan Tsvangirai before they both left bitter and unceremonious, their parties
Mujuru was ZanuPF and the country’s first female Vice President and was, at one time, tipped to succeed Mugabe before she was chucked out of the party in 2014 for allegedly plotting to unseat Mugabe.
She later formed her own party, the Zimbabwe People First before she abandoned it for the National People’s Party, after a legal wrangle over the former’s name.
She then was selected to lead the National People’s Rainbow Coalition, which is currently toiling in the current results.
Khupe on the other hand, was outmanoeuvred by Chamisa following the death of Morgan Tsvangirai.
At the time of the wrangle, Khupe was the party’s first Vice President and, like Mujuru at one time, seemed to be headed towards the top job but it became a case of “too close yet so far,”
Feeling bitter and let down, Khupe, unlike Mujuru though, carried with her the party’s name , leaving Chamisa and his swaggered cabinet , fighting a legal battle, which they would surrender on the eve of the election as they found a lifeline in the MDC Alliance.
The two women had hoped to crawl their way back into the political relevance realm through this election, but as things stand, they seem to be sinking deeper into the political hollows.
