Innocent Mujeri

The Citizens Coalition for Change’s (CCC) ambitious rural voter mobilization campaign targeting to poach voters from ZANU PF strongholds has failed to gain traction with reports insinuating that the party has failed to penetrate the rural areas.

An impeccable source within the CCC Organising Department confessed to this publication that the voter mobilization exercise was becoming a daunting task with most of that party’s scheduled meetings in rural areas being shunned by the locals.

“The rural voter mobilization campaign is proving to be a daunting task. We had hoped that by now we could have penetrated most of the country’s rural areas. However, in meetings we held in Murehwa, Mutoko and Uzumba, we failed to attract reasonable crowds as people in those areas are strongly attached to ZANU PF,” admitted the source.

The source further laid the blame on interim Organising Secretary, Amos Chibaya, for failing to come up with strategies to effectively market that party as a viable alternative to the people.

“We are being let down by Chibaya. He just introduced this rural campaign programme that he has since named Mugwazo (fast track) without consulting other members. Chibaya was supposed to first discuss the best approach to the rural areas before launching the programme. The rural people are not the same as their urban counterparts and you need a strategy to convince them to join the party. Chibaya seems to be clueless on what should be done to lure the rural voters into supporting the CCC,”said the source.

The same source added that the absence of party structures was also making it difficult for the CCC to mobilise in the rural areas. He said that unlike ZANU PF which has structures across the country, the CCC had no structures, save for their leader Nelson Chamisa, as others leaders were occupying their positions on an interim basis.

According to the source, the rural mobilisation campaign was also affected by lack of financial resources as some people who previously financed that party’s activities were hesitant to support the mobilization programme as they are sceptical about Chibaya leading the mobilization programme.

The CCC has since realised that relying on urban voters alone will never get to State House, hence all these machinations to lure the rural  voters ahead of the 2023 Harmonised General Elections.