The Ideas Party of (IPD) has pulled out of the March 26 by-elections citing electoral irregularities and uneven playing ground.
The party’s leader, Herbert Chamuka made the declaration on the same day that Professor Lovemore Madhuku who leads the National Constitutional Assembly (NCA) announced that it will not partake in the plebiscites as they are a waste of resources.
Chamuka alleged the meeting between President Emmerson Mnangagwa and MDC-T leader, Douglas Mwonzora opened a possibility of the elections being rigged in favour of the two parties.
“We have by-elections that are imminent, we saw that Douglas Mwonzora and Emmerson Mnangagwa had a meeting. It can be a strategy to rig the elections. It’s not easy for any other political party to win because the outcome is already known,” Chamuka alleged.
He said his party will, thus, focus on the 2023 elections as he believes he stands a good chance of winning against Mnangagwa.
“I’m requesting all IDP supporters not to lose hope because for the by-elections, we will not be accepted even if we win, therefore, we will not get involved.
“We look forward to the 2023 elections where people can vote and IDP will not be involved in the 26 March by-elections because there are a lot of irregularities,” he said.
Meanwhile, Professor Madhuku has blamed the ruling Zanu PF for only concentrating on elections while doing nothing for the country’s economic development.
He cited this as the reason his party’s pulling out.
“Most of these Zanu PF politicians just believe in elections. They were having their provincial elections, now they are in by-elections. They will not be doing much for the nation, I can assure you in the next three to four months, it will be about by-elections,” Madhuku said.
“This set of by-elections is a waste of resources and will not have much political benefit for the country. The timing by the President (Emmerson Mnangagwa) is not so welcome because almost all political parties are busy preparing for the 2023 harmonised elections. We do not support the logic of the president on these by-elections,” he added.
He added: “As the NCA, we are not fielding any candidates for the by-election in 2022. NCA is building its systems. It is not a We are preparing for 2023. We are focusing on electoral laws and electoral reforms as POLAD, a document has been prepared with 18 proposals to campaign for the reforms from now till the end of 2022.”
“We want the registration for voters to follow the same format as that of the census where the census people go to homes to count everyone. The second reform is that we want the public broadcaster to allocate time for all political parties which they do not regulate. We want a live presentation of our programmes, which are not edited by a public broadcaster. The ruling party does so many programmes which are not edited on television.”
Madhuku demanded the government to amend the repressive electoral law, which he said closed the voters’ rolls soon after elections were proclaimed
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