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Zimbabwe: Mugabe dishes out free maize in Gutu ahead of by-election

GUTU - President Robert Mugabe's government has begun distributing maize in a hunger-stricken constituency where it is facing a by-election, in what the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party has said is an attempt to bribe voters with food.
A ZimOnline news crew touring Gutu constituency at the weekend witnessed thousands of villagers receiving 50kg bags of maize from the government's Grain Marketing Board (GMB) at various rural business centres in the area such as Zvavahera, Chinyika, Nyamandi and Utsinda.

Maize, Zimbabwe's main staple food, is in critical short supply in the country and there is no other area besides Gutu where the GMB is distributing free maize.

MDC candidate in the November 26 by-election, Crispa Musoni, said: "The maize distribution is linked to the by-election because in constituencies where there are no elections, there is no maize distribution. The maize has been piling at GMB only for the distribution to coincide with these elections."

Musoni will battle it out with Lovemore Matuke who is representing Mugabe's ruling ZANU PF party in the poll to choose a replacement for the late Member of Parliament for the area, Josiah Tungamirai, who died about two months ago. Tungamirai belonged to ZANU PF.

State Security Minister Didymus Mutasa, who also oversees food aid distribution, was not available for comment on the matter.

But an official of Gutu rural district council, who declined to be named because he is not authorised to speak to the Press, insisted that the distribution of maize had nothing to do with the by-election saying it was planned well before anyone knew there would be an election in the area. However, well-known MDC supporters in the area said they were being denied the maize as punishment for backing the opposition party.

For example, chairman of the MDC in Gutu's ward 19, Makoni Goronga, told ZimOnline that he and his family had been scrapped from the list of recipients of maize from the GMB maize because of his links with the opposition party.

Another villager from ward 11, Kassian Jaravaza, said he and all his relatives were barred from getting the maize because they support the MDC. He said: "I am not getting anything and my name and those of my relatives have not been included on the list of those who must get the maize because I support the opposition."

The distribution of maize is being handled by traditional village heads and councillors, in the past accused by the MDC of being used by the government to intimidate their communities to back Mugabe and ZANU PF.

The MDC, churches and pro-democracy groups have in the past accused Mugabe of not only using food to buy votes but of also resorting to violence to coerce villagers in remote parts of the country to back his ZANU PF party. The Zimbabwean leader denies the charges.