Mujuru forms new party

HARDLY a year after launching the Zimbabwe People First (ZimPF) party, under-fire Dr Joice Mujuru who broke ranks with the opposition party's elders, yesterday formed yet another political outfit and named it the National People's Party (NPP).

The new party was formed under the guise of rebranding the feuding ZimPF formed on March 1, 2015.

Dr Mujuru had a fallout with other founding members including Messrs Didymus Mutasa and Rugare Gumbo and was followed by counter lawsuits.

Dr Mujuru made the announcement of the formation of the new political party yesterday at a press conference in Harare.

The latest development comes after several members from the party have been resigning citing confusion around rights to the party.

Rival factions, with one standing in Dr Mujuru's corner and another led by "Elders", who include Messrs Mutasa, Gumbo and Kudakwashe Bhasikiti, were laying claim to the name ZimPF.

Addressing journalists yesterday, Dr Mujuru said following consultations with party members countrywide, they decided to rebrand their party.

"Members of the Fourth Estate I am glad to meet you and make this important announcement about our party. After consultation with party membership of the 10 provinces, we have decided to rebrand ourselves in order to reflect our ideology and core values that make us a unique political party in this country.

"We realised that there were limitations that the name Zimbabwe People First (ZimPF) had in reflecting and selling the national democratic ideology and core values we espouse as a party. As national democrats, we are guided by our main core values of Constitutionalism, Inclusivity, Devolution of Power and Equity (CIDE). We therefore agreed that our previous identity did not put to the fore these important persuasions," she said.

Dr Mujuru said their national executive council also held a meeting on Thursday where they resolved that from March 3, their "brand name" would be NPP.

"Our national executive council, the highest decision making body in between national people's elective conventions, in a meeting held yesterday, 2 March 2017, resolved that from today, 03 March 2017, our brand name be National People's Party (NPP).

She said her party was determined to remove Zanu-PF from power.

"We derive our uniqueness in that we are national democrats who believe in inclusivity among races, tribes, regions, gender, among other things that identify with our common vision as a political party. In line with our core value of inclusivity, we remain committed to a coalition of progressive and democratic opposition forces to ensure we end the autocratic (President) Mugabe rule at elections in 2018," Dr Mujuru said.