A Grace Mugabe daughter at heart has lost her bid to represent Zanu PF in the Hwedza North by-election.
Aplonia Munzverengi will be remembered for last week scattering around posters with Grace Mugabe’s portrait on them as she prided herself as Mrs Mugabe’s daughter.
But yesterday Munzverengi came third in a poll won by one David Musabayana. The seat fell vacant following the death of Simon Kundai Musanhu, who died in January at the age of 47. Musabayana, who is an economist by profession, beat seven other prospective candidates after garnering 2 227 votes.

His closest rival, Antony Parehwa, polled 1 583 followed by Aplonia Munzverengi, who got 1 533.
Announcing the results at the Hwedza Council offices on Wednesday night, presiding officer George Rutanhire who is also a Zanu-PF Politburo member, thanked the people of Wedza for voting peacefully. He urged party members to desist from vote-buying.
Rutanhire’s remarks came in the wake of reports that some prospective candidates were dishing out donations on the election day to sway voting patterns in their favour. “If you were using money to win support that should stop forthwith,” he said.
“Zanu-PF is a big institution and it was not built through vote buying. We fought the liberation struggle without being paid and where is this spirit coming from? “We are going to report everything to our leaders that we have seen here and make our recommendations.”
Rutanhire urged Zanu-PF members to be united saying Wedza constituency should be exemplary in terms of discipline.
He said other by-elections were likely to be held soon in 17 constituencies with MDC-T Members of Parliament if the Speaker considered the letter written by the faction seeking to recall the MPs.
In that regard, Rutanhire urged Zanu-PF to be ready for the polls and deliver resounding victory. Speaking to the Herald after being declared the winner, Musabayana said he was ready to be a servant of the people of Wedza. He said his priority was to ensure that people had access to safe drinking water.
Musabayana said most people in Wedza were drinking water from unprotected sources, exposing themselves to water borne diseases such as cholera.
“We have several projects that we have lined up such as fish harvesting and contract farming that we think if implemented may help to create employment for our youths,” he said.
Mashonaland East provincial chair Aenias Chigwedere said the primary elections had exposed some discrepancies that needed to be rectified.
Others who contested in the primary elections were Lawrence Muroyiwa, Nathan Matemera, Rodwell Zinyemba, Faith Chisango and Brain Nyaguse.