Zanu PF officials arrested after being caught with box full of filled-in ballot papers

Mimmy

27/03/2023

Police have arrested a Zanu PF official in Mazowe North after he was caught with 651 filled-in ballot papers from the party’s primary election.

Justice Marufu, a member of contestant Tsungai Makumbe’s campaign team was arrested by Mvurwi police officers Sunday.

Makumbe, Campion Mugweni, Martin Dinha, and Tafadzwa Musarara were all competing for parliamentary candidature in the constituency.

The matter is being handled by Mvurwi police station under case number RRB5323373.

“At Forester J Polling station, voting started at 1545hrs and ended at 1900hrs. For the 3 hours, 15 minutes 1089 were reported to have voted and thus 17 seconds per person. The total votes of MP candidates were recorded as 1,350 but do not tally with the total aggregate votes for councillors.

“Justice Marufu, a member of Tsungai Makumbe campaign been arrested and now in police custody at Mvurwi Police Station after (being) caught with 651 ballot papers,” reads a report gleaned by NewZimbabwe.com

“They are several reports of missing cells in many polling stations.

“Tsungai has already started to celebrate before the command centre received the remaining 50%.”

Musarara has since withdrawn from the race citing the irregularities.

“I hereby tender my withdrawal from the above-mentioned primary election due to gross irregularities that have occurred.

” I remain a committed cadre of the ruling party, Zanu PF,” said Musarara.

While the ZANU PF political commissar, Mike Bimha claimed that the voting process had gone smoothly on Saturday, there have been reports of rigging at some Zanu PF centres where members were voting.

The ruling party was over the weekend involved in internal elections to come up with parliamentary and council candidates for this year’s election.