By Paidashe Mandivengerei
ETERNAL political foes Zanu PF and the MDC will once again lock horns in two distinctly different constituencies that need to be filled after they fell vacant due to natural wastage.
After last year’s general elections, Zimbabwe has consistently been in election mode with the MDC winning the by-election in Mutasa Central while Zanu PF last week won two Ward polls held in Manicaland and Masvingo.
The two parties are locked in a bitter tussle to fill Lupane East and in September will take their rivalry to Glen View South and Mangwe constituencies.
President Emmerson Mnangagwa has set the 7th of September this year as the day for Glen View South, Harare and Mangwe, Matebeleland South National Assembly by-elections after the posts fell vacant following the deaths of MDC MP, Vimbai Tsvangirai Java and Zanu PF’s, Obedingwa Mguni respectively.
Java, daughter to former Prime Minister and MDC founder, Morgan Tsvangirai passed away this June, succumbing to injuries she sustained in a car crash in Kwekwe.
From her hospital bed, she had won and been elected secretary general of the MDC women’s assembly at the MDC’s 2019 extra ordinary congress.
While the opposition party had initially made the decision to reserve the Harare constituency for Tsvangirai’s family, the party seems to have changed and opened the internal contest to represent it to all interested members.
Mguni, the late Zanu PF deputy Chief Whip, died in June of diabetes complications.
In a proclamation published in the Extraordinary Government Gazette, Mnangagwa said the Nomination Courts will sit on the 26th of July to receive nominations at the Harare and Gwanda Magistrates Court for Glen View South and Mangwe constituency separately.
“Now, therefore, under and by virtue of powers vested in me, as President as afore said, I do, by this proclamation; (a) order a new election for the constituency of Glen View South; and (b) fix, Friday July 26, 2019, as the date on which the nomination court shall sit, commencing at 10am at the Magistrates’ Court, Rotten Row, Harare, for the purpose of receiving nomination of candidates for election as a member of the National Assembly Constituency for Glen View South; and (b) fix, Saturday September 7, 2019, as the day on which a poll shall be taken if a poll becomes necessary in terms of section 46(17)(c) of the Electoral Act[Chapter 2:],” reads proclamation 3 of 2019.
Mnangagwa also published proclamation 4 of 2019 as regards the Mangwe by-elections in the same manner as the Glen View South snap poll with the Nomination Court sitting in the Matabeleland South capital.
