THE opposition People’s Democratic Party (PDP) has launched a recruitment programme aimed at harnessing at least 5 000 votes from every ward in Bulawayo ahead of elections expected in the second half of next year.
Source: PDP target 5 000 voters in every Byo ward – NewsDay Zimbabwe March 20, 2017
BY SILAS NKALA
The MDC-T led by former Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai has since the turn of the century dominated Bulawayo politics, only to cede parliamentary seats to Zanu PF following the acrimonious split with then secretary-general Tendai Biti (pictured) in 2014. Biti broke away to form the PDP.
PDP provincial organising secretary, Bekithemba Nyathi, told Southern Eye last week that his party has embarked on a massive recruitment drive with the aim of getting over 100 000 new total votes by 2018.
“This is done through the use of data base collection and the process is now underway,” Nyathi said.
“By end of April we need to have recruited between 5 000 and 6 000 at least in every ward in Bulawayo. Our aim is to claim Bulawayo through the programme code named Take Over Programme (TOP). I can safely say Bulawayo is safe under PDP, we do not see any political party from the current political players in Bulawayo matching the kind of work PDP is doing.”
Nyathi said, while a re-organisation of the party is also underway in the province, organisers were happy with the progress made thus far indicating there would be surprises come next year.
However, PDP is one of the political parties in the Coalition of Democrats (Code) which have agreed to go into the 2018 elections as a combined force in an effort to defeat Zanu PF and President Robert Mugabe, but reports indicate Mavambo/Kusile/Dawn leader Simba Makoni, who is also part of the loose coalition has already endorsed Tsvangirai as a presidential candidate.
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