Let’s do the analysis for the 28 Parliamentary (House of Assembly) seats contested in the by-election. Firstly let me congratulate all the winners and implore them to carry out their duties faithfully, loyally, truthfully, patriotically, competently and wholeheartedly knowing very well that beyond winning an election is the duty to serve the country and the people of Zimbabwe in moving the country forward.
By Reason Wafawarova
Let me wish those who came second best to the best in their political endeavours in the future. Democracy entails that we test the wishes of our people through the casting of votes and thereafter we all accept and respect the outcome of the people’s wishes, supporting those mandated to represent our people.
So we had 28 vacant parliamentary seats, the majority of them being vacant because of recalls of incumbent MPs from the MDC T, and others because incumbents died or vacated to take up other appointments.
Out of the 28 seats contested 21 formerly belonged to the MDC T and 7 to Zanu PF.
The CCC, a breakaway new party from the MDC T won 19 of the 28 seats while Zanu PF won 9, gaining 2 seats from their tally in 2018.
Zanu PF tallied 76 355 votes in the 9 constituencies they won, and the CCC polled 24 307 in these constituencies they failed to win. The difference in votes here is 52 228.
In the 19 constituencies that the CCC won they tallied 105 492, with Zanu PF trailing them with 51 864 votes. The difference in votes for the 19 constituencies is 53 628, only 1 400 higher than that of the 9 constituencies won by Zanu PF. There is a difference of 10 consciences in favour of the CCC.
The cumulative vote for the CCC is 129 799 and that of Zanu PF is 128 399. The difference is 1 400 and yet Zanu PF only won 9 seats.
The bi-partisan vote was 258 198 and the CCC won 50.27% of that vote while Zanu PF won 49.72%.
There are a few things to note. The CCC is only weeks old do they did extremely well, but not surprisingly, given the by-election was largely in the opposition’s traditional strongholds.
Secondly, the figures show that Zanu PF has the mobilising capacity to win big in their strongholds and also to narrow the margin in the opposition strongholds.
2023 is going to be exciting and I know for a fact that Zanu PF is going to engage big brains to work around these voting patterns ahead of 2023.
Equally, I think the CCC will push ahead with encouragement after the boost of retaining or recovering seats lost to needless court battles in the aftermath of Tsvangirai’s death.
