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(TALKZIMBABWE) MDC-T losing support, Zanu-PF gaining: Freedom House

MDC-T losing support, Zanu-PF gaining: Freedom House
This article was written by Our reporter
on 22 August, at 18 : 26 PM

A NEW poll by the United State’s Freedom House shows that support for the Movement for Democratic Change party led by Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai has been fading from 2010.

Freedom House is a non-governmental organisation that “supports democratic change, monitors freedom, and advocates for democracy and human rights around the world,” according to its website.

The same poll shows Zanu-PF’s popularity as rising by 14 percentage points during the same period from 17 percent to 31 percent.

The MDC went down 18 percentage points from 38 percent to 20 percent. 47 percent of the people surveyed did not state their preference.

The results were released Wednesday by the Mass Public Opinion Institute (MPOI), sponsored by Freedom House.

The poll also showed President Robert Mugabe as the favorite on 31 percent, up from 12 percent in 2009.

Prime Minister Tsvangirai was on 19 percent, down from 55 percent in 2009.

The MDC factions led by Professor Welshman Ncube and Professor Arthur Mutambara was not mentioned in the poll. Combined, they are still the third party, judging from the poll.

Zimbabwe is set to go to the polls at the end of this year or early next year.

The latest poll results by Freedom House will be a blow to the MDC-T party which dismissed such other poll last year, showing that it was losing support amongst Zimbabweans.

In 2011, the NGO said the support for the MDC-T had dropped sharply from 55 percent to 38 percent – showing a 17 percent decline.

Then MDC spokesman Nelson Chamisa, dismissed the survey saying it could not be deemed conclusive arguing “there were many people who did not express their views freely in the exercise”.

This year, Freedom House compiled the figures from a “nationally” representative sample of 2 000 adult Zimbabweans in all the 10 provinces.

Labels: MDC, NELSON CHAMISA, POLLING, ZANU-PF

posted by MrK @ 3:52 PM