Zwnews Chief Correspondent | Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa has said his party will capacitate women so that they would be at par with their male counterparts who recently used money or bribes to buy votes, during the recently held ruling party primaries.
According to the ZANU PF provincial chairladies who spoke on behalf of their provincial structures during the party’s Women’s League meeting last Thursday, men used intimidation, violence, and vote buying or bribes, at the expense of women.
As a result, out of the 210 contested constituencies only 22 women made it.
In his response to the women’s plight, President Mnangagwa told the women at the meeting that his party would be working on a plan to capacitate women so that they could match men who used money to buy votes pound for pound.
“In response to your outcry that men used money to buy votes. We will work on a 10 year plan to capacitate the women. The assumption would be that at the end of those years, many women would have amassed some wealth,” said President Mnangagwa.
Meanwhile, political commentator Elder Mabhunu says the utterances by the President shows that he sees nothing wrong in vote buying, as his response suggests that he would capacitate women to outdo men in the game of vote buying.
“Instead of nipping the rot from the bud, Mnangagwa’s sentiments that he will capacitate women so that they could have wealth and counter vote buying by men, means, that for him, vote buying is not a social ill that need to be eliminated,” he says.
Be that as it may, President Mnangagwa has also been blamed for dining with the very people who have been fingered in acts of corruption. Renowned political analyst Dr Pedzisai Ruhanya once wrote on his twitter account that it was a joke to expect President Mnangagwa to deal with corruption.
