Binga North MP designate, Prince Dubeko Sibanda says that for opposition candidates to win elections, they should vigorously campaign in their constituencies and wards rather than wait for people coming from outside.
Sibanda was recalled by the MDC-T in October 2020, which accused him of joining the rival MDC Alliance that was led by Nelson Chamisa at the time.
He has, however, bounced back by winning the seat in the 26 March by-election on a Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC) ticket.
Sibanda garnered 10 130 votes, defeating Kudakwashe Mavula Munsaka of ZANU-PF who came second with 7 971 votes.
He believes ZANU PF wanted to win the seat at all costs after it sent its senior members to campaign for its candidate and poured significant financial resources into its campaign.
Obert Mpofu (secretary for administration), Kembo Mohadi and Constantino Chiwenga (both vice presidents), Richard Moyo (provincial chairman) and even President Emmerson Mnangagwa visited Binga North before the by-election.
Sibanda attributed his victory to the importance of strengthened structures and localised leadership who campaigned in all polling stations.
Speaking on Twitter space on By-Election Results and Matabeleland Voting patterns Thursday evening, Sibanda said:
It is important for people to provide leadership wherever they are in order for people to win and this is what we did.
We literally camped in Binga North and made sure we activated all of our structures.
We had 69 polling stations before the elections and towards the elections, we were told one of our polling stations was going to be removed due to low numbers of voters so 68 were left.
In those 68 polling stations, we had campaign teams of 20 members that were ready to go down to the ground.
There was a lot of vote-buying. I’m sure everyone can see that if they look at the numbers of assisted voters in Binga North they went up this time around.
There were people who were given US$20 and told ‘go into the polling station with someone to assist you.’ That’s why we have numbers of assisted voters going up.
But they could not defeat the localised kind of campaign teams and campaign leadership that we had.
Richard Moyo, Obert Mpofu, Chiwenga, Mohadi, and Mnangagwa are all visitors but we were localised, energised, there on the ground and had the necessary leadership that did the work.
It didn’t really necessarily need me to be in every one of the 15 wards.
I would go and show my face in each and every ward but having people on the ground doing our work for us that was important.
This is what made us win and be where we are today.