By- Former MDC-T deputy president, Thokozani Khupe has been deployed to lure 2023 election votes for the CCC party in Bubi and Umguza districts in Matabeleland.

The former Deputy Prime Minister trekked Bulawayo and Matabeleland provinces urging citizens to register during the mobile voter registration exercise that ended on 30 April 2022.

Khupe was working with provincial CCC leaders and the party’s interim vice president, Welshman Ncube.

This comes after she announced that she had joined CCC following her acrimonious departure from the MDC-T led by Douglas Mwonzora.

Khupe’s spokesperson, Ntando Ndlovu, told CITE that the former trade unionist had been tasked to mobilise rural voters by CCC leadership in Harare. Said Ndlovu:

She’s been deployed to Bubi and Umguza as part of the party’s rural mobilisation strategy. That’s where the focus will be going forward.

In Bulawayo, she teamed up with other senior opposition leaders and they toured several western suburbs urging Bulawayo residents to register to vote.

She has also teamed up with other leaders in Bubi and Umguza in Matabeleland North and Plumtree in Matabeleland South where they were doing a similar exercise.

Ndlovu claimed that Khupe was working well with the majority of senior leaders of CCC, despite sentiments from some members, especially in Bulawayo Province, who were opposed to her entry into the party. Said Ndlovu:

The sentiments that you are referring to are coming from staff riders and gatekeepers who are incapable of mobilizing citizens and the electorate.

They then, therefore, resort to issuing reckless and senseless statements in the media to get attention, for which they have an insatiable appetite. Dr Khupe remains unshaken and clear about the task at hand.

… Khupe has used the door-to-door campaigns to urge the citizenry to vote for CCC and Advocate Nelson Chamisa ahead of next year’s elections.

The citizens have generally welcomed the message that Dr Khupe has carried to them and they have applauded her decision to throw her weight behind Adv Chamisa.

As a former trade unionist, Dr Khupe is really humbled by the amount of positive feedback she’s receiving from the ground.