{"id":38647,"date":"2021-04-16T17:57:22","date_gmt":"2021-04-16T15:57:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/zimbabwe\/?p=38647"},"modified":"2021-04-16T17:35:37","modified_gmt":"2021-04-16T15:35:37","slug":"mdc-deserter-pledges-to-use-zifa-influence-to-lure-support-to-zanu-pf","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/zimbabwe\/all-news\/mdc-deserter-pledges-to-use-zifa-influence-to-lure-support-to-zanu-pf","title":{"rendered":"MDC Deserter Pledges To Use Zifa Influence To Lure Support To Zanu PF"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #ff6600\"><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/\">Africa-Press<\/a> &#8211; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/zimbabwe\">Zimbabwe<\/a>. <\/strong><\/span><b>By Staff Reporter<\/b> &#8211; FORMER MDC Alliance Manicaland provincial secretary for legal affairs Simon Simango who defected to Zanu PF on Sunday said he was going to use his influence within ZIFA to lure youths to vote for Zanu PF in 2023.<\/p>\n<p>Simango is also a member of the football mother body\u2019s disciplinary committee.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking at a Zanu PF provincial Coordinating Committee (PCC) held at Mutare Hall on Sunday, Simango said he had no regrets dumping the Nelson Chamisa led opposition he described as \u201ca directionless party\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhy should I continue to follow a directionless party? A political party which does not have vision, a political party which does not have an ideology, which does not even know why it exists, a political party which opposes for the sake of opposing,\u201d said Sithole after being welcomed by some senior Zanu PF officials in the province.<\/p>\n<p>Simango added, \u201cI am a member of the Zifa disciplinary committee and as you know, Zifa deals with youngsters and the majority of votes come from youths.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI want to use my position and connections in Zifa to make sure we support youth programmes.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI have decided to say end of May after people have finished harvesting together with my colleagues in Zifa, we have made an undertaking to come to my constituency in Musikavanhu and we donate soccer kits to all the team in the constituency,\u201d said Simango.<\/p>\n<p>He pledged to dedicate his energies towards helping Zanu PF attain its ambitious 5 million voters target for the 2023 elections.<\/p>\n<p>However, in attempts to ingratiate himself with Zanu PF, Simango may have inadvertently fallen foul of the laws of football which frown upon any political influence with the popular sport.<\/p>\n<p>FIFA has pledged neutrality in national politics of any of its affiliate country territories.<\/p>\n<p>This also involves religious neutrality.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Africa-Press &#8211; Zimbabwe. By Staff Reporter &#8211; FORMER MDC Alliance Manicaland provincial secretary for legal affairs Simon Simango who defected to Zanu PF on Sunday said he was going to use his influence within ZIFA to lure youths to vote for Zanu PF in 2023. Simango is also a member of the football mother body\u2019s [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":38646,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,35,10,15],"tags":[1493,2189,19],"class_list":["post-38647","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-homepage-english","category-parties","category-twitter","tag-africa-press","tag-africa-press-zimbabwe-2","tag-zimbabwe"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.1 (Yoast SEO v27.0) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>MDC Deserter Pledges To Use Zifa Influence To Lure Support To Zanu PF - zimbabwe<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"By Staff Reporter - FORMER MDC Alliance Manicaland provincial secretary for legal affairs Simon Simango who defec ...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/zimbabwe\/all-news\/mdc-deserter-pledges-to-use-zifa-influence-to-lure-support-to-zanu-pf\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"MDC Deserter Pledges To Use Zifa Influence To Lure Support To Zanu PF\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"By Staff Reporter - 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