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Nqobile Tshili, Chronicle Reporter 

ZANU-PF has set a recruitment target of 5 million members by 2023 to confirm its status as a mass organisation and effectively silence post-election contestations.

Addressing party members in Bulawayo during the announcement of District Co-ordinating Committee (DCC) election results at Davies Hall on Sunday, Zanu-PF national political commissar Cde Victor Matemadanda said the party was targeting sweeping margins in the coming elections. 

 “We have a target as the commissariat and Zanu-PF that by 2023 we want to have built or developed our membership to not less than 5 million registered voters. We are saying the vote of the President that we expect will not be less than 65 percent. Right now, we are having this noise due to the number of votes that were received by the President. We no longer want the President’s vote to be almost similar to any other candidate,” he said.

In the 2018 harmonised elections, President Mnangagwa garnered 50,8 percent of the presidential votes with his closest opponent and MDC Alliance president Mr Nelson Chamisa getting 44 percent. 

Mr Chamisa contested the results at the Constitutional Court but the nine-member Constitutional Court judges unanimously confirmed President Mnangagwa as the duly-elected President of Zimbabwe affirming his five-year mandate to lead the country until 2023.

Cde Matemadanda challenged party loyalists to embark on a recruitment drive to bring new people into the ruling party.

He said the new DCC members have a role in leading the new recruitment drive.

“By new members I’m not saying that you should bring to the party people who are already Zanu-PF members. You would have done nothing if you do so. Bring everybody to the mass party, don’t go labelling people saying this one was in NPF or MDC,” Cde Matemadanda said.

He said the ruling party is now aiming to penetrate the urban areas that are largely dominated by the MDC Alliance.

“MDC has brought suffering to the people. In Bulawayo they are just doing whatever they want. They fire the Town Clerk, some of the guys with unkempt hair don’t even know the correct procedure. Right now, if you move from one suburb to another, they are failing on service delivery. They are failing to manage waste and want to claim that they can lead this country. That’s impossible,” Cde Matemadanda said.—@nqotshili