Suspended Zanu-PF MPs return to the fold

Zanu-PF has been forced to consider allowing dozens of MPs currently serving lengthy suspensions to rejoin the governing party.

Some of the suspended legislators who include Shamva MP Nicholas Goche, Enock Porusingazi (Chipinge South), Tendai Savanhu (Mbare)  and Fortune Chasi (Mazowe South) have been spotted at  First Lady Grace Mugabe's rallies taking active roles.

Insiders said the first lady is being strongly urged by senior officials to consider readmitting the officials as a dramatic move to reunite the party.

The MPs, except for Savanhu, were at Grace's recent rally in Chiweshe where the first lady acknowledged Goche as an honest leader.

Goche was accused along with former vice president Joice Mujuru of plotting to assassinate president Robert Mugabe.

Former deputy Justice minister and Mazowe South legislator Fortune Chasi, who had fierce run-ins with Grace over violent evictions of Manzou Farm villagers, is also being rehabilitated.

Chasi - who was recently fired as a junior minister by Mugabe for his perceived support for Mujuru - said there were no hard feelings. "The first lady is our mother and she knows people make mistakes, I make mistakes, and everyone does," he said.

"That is why she has publicly called for the spirit of forgiveness and as a professional; it is also in my nature to forgive and forget because we cannot be successful as a people when we hold grudges."

At the height of their fracas, Grace accused Chasi of "terrorising" her in the area, where she owns a number of farms and runs her Amai Grace Mugabe Children's Home.

Chasi said all that is water under the bridge now.

"It is that spirit of forgiveness that will make us successful in all our endeavours and now I am concentrating with doing work for my constituency and the party fully backs me," Chasi said.

Porusingazi, who is serving a five-year suspension, weighed in saying the reason why they were punished in the first place was to force reform.

"We have always been supportive of our mother and his excellency that is why you see us participating in her programmes even when the rallies are in other provinces," Porusingazi said.

"There are people who labelled us names but now the truth is coming as it turns out that they are the ones who have never liked the first lady.

"We do not change, we will continue to work with her and nobody can ever separate us for the mother of the nation.

"Besides she is the women's league secretary and we are happy with that."