The welcome entry of Dr Makoni into the political fray has generated intense mixed reactions. To some it has generated extraordinary excitement whereas to others it has meant skepticism. I personally believe that Dr Makoni faces a mammoth task if the Mavambo/Kusile/Dawn project is to succeed.

One of the greatest failures of the current opposition has been to come up with a single strategy to campaign in both the urban and rural areas.Dr Makoni can avoid it by coming with the following strategies

In the urban areas, the constituencies can be divided into the low and high density surburbs.It will be relatively easy for Dr Makoni to win the hearts of people in the low density suburbs since they are a propertied class who are more likely to favor an orderly transition as compared to an uncertain transition if Tsvangirai is to win given that Makoni seem to have some support within the security structure which Tsvangirai does not have. The majority of captains of industry who are likely to support Makoni also reside in these areas. What is necessary is for the Makoni team to field credible candidates who are electable. The major campaign strategy will be small group meetings, lobbying influential individuals through their clubs etc and even establishing a call centre where volunteers can use the phone to reach out to the electrorate.The message should be to encourage the voters to go in their thousands and vote

In the high density suburbs, a lot of work needs to be done. Firstly, building structures to each and every street in the ghettos. There is also need for party visibility by printing T/shirts and other paraphernalia showing the party symbol so that people may be aware of the symbol. After forming the core structure, there is need to mobilize a massive rally, say at Zimbabwe grounds so that Dr Makoni quash the rumors’ that have been talked by his detractors who are saying he is an agent of ZANU PF.The first major rally must be a psychological game of numbers. Massive organization is needed. Its success or failure will set the tone for the whole campaign. A massive rally will create momentum and win all the skeptics to Dr Makoni’s side. He can also take advantage of the rally to tell the urbanites to send the message of Mavambo/Kusile/Dawn to the rural areas which is very difficult to penetrate. He can cap it all by also making impromptu door to door campaigns or walkabouts in the high density areas. In short there is need for a blitz in the urban high density areas. There is need for a permanent presence by activists until election time that should encourage people to vote.

Once the candidates and credible teams to campaign in specific areas are identified, the campaign must roll into gear. From the beginning, they must use people in the area and underground methods to campaign like door to door one on one because early rallies will result in ZANU PF employing violence and intimidating the people. In areas where the notorious ZANU PF militias are strong, it may be important to infiltrate them and finally recruit them. A campaign blitz with open distribution of T/shirts, party regalia etc must only be implemented in the final weeks of the campaign where it will be late for the ZANU PF intimidation machinery to respond. Hence those who are still in ZANU PF who back Makoni must only come in the open in rural areas in the final week of the campaign.

Another urgent strategy in the rural areas is to clandestinely recruit village heads and headman who haven’t benefited much from ZANU PF patronage. It’s only the chiefs who have benefited and hence the village heads in particular are ready for harvesting. These will be decisive for the rural vote.

To conclude, the campaign strategies will never be cast in stone. What is needed is ambushing the regime and at the same time knowing their strategies in advance for when the hunted know how the hunter hunts, then the hunting is over.

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