Political parties in Zimbabwe are currently conducting primary elections for selecting candidates for the forthcoming council, parliamentary and presidential elections.
The ruling ZANU PF Politburo is meeting today in Harare to look into profiles of hundreds of people, including musicians, who wish to represent it in the crucial elections.
ZANU PF spokesperson, Chris Mutsvangwa, says the selection of candidates is going well.
On the other hand, the main opposition Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC) says it is engaging people at grassroots level in conducting its national process of selecting candidates for the polls.
CCC interim deputy spokesperson, Gift Ostallos Siziba, says, "Ours is a totally different selection process as we are involving some of the people that are normally excluded from the selection process. We are talking about teachers, chiefs, nurses and other stakeholders.
"This is a deep-rooted democratic process that involves citizens. People are choosing their own representatives who will contest the council, parliamentary and presidential elections. We are a citizens movement driven by local people."
The other opposition parties like the former liberation movement, ZAPU, and the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC-T), are also conducting primaries.
MDC-T information and publicity secretary, Witness Dube, says his party is also conducting grassroots primaries.
Dube says, “We are conducting our primaries in which we are involving locals in choosing their own candidates. Our process is very democratic as we are engaging a lot of people in this process.”
Zimbabwe is set to hold harmonized elections in July or August this year, five years after its last disputed polls won by the ruling party. Security forces gunned down by six people in Harare when some political activists took to the streets to protest against delays in announcing presidential results. A commission for inquiry set up by the government found that the deceased were killed by members of the Zimbabwe National Army. It recommended that the deceased's family members should be compensated.