Mugabe bans demos against Zanu-PF officials

Zanu-PF provincial structures and organs must now look into the grievances raised by party cadres who demonstrated in various provinces against fellow party officials, instead of resorting to further demonstrations, President Mugabe has said.

The Zanu-PF First Secretary said demonstrations were destructive to the party, as they exposed it to the opposition and Western countries who wanted to see it disintegrate.

President Mugabe, however, said if any party officials were disobedient they should be brought before the disciplinary committee.

He made the remarks as he addressed the 105th Ordinary Meeting of the Zanu-PF Central Committee at the party's headquarters in Harare yesterday.

The meeting came hard on the heels of demonstrations against party national political commissar, Saviour Kasukuwere and Mashonaland Central provincial chairperson, Dickson Mafios, by party members last week.The duo is accused of seeking to topple President Mugabe through capturing party structures.

There were also demonstrations against former Deputy Secretary for the Women's League Eunice Sandi Moyo and former secretary of finance in the wing Sarah Mahoka, for undermining the First Lady, Amai Grace Mugabe.

Said President Mugabe: "To all those who have been expressing displeasures through demonstrations in various provinces, we say fine, you have made your points, and your voices have been heard. But, please, the party has structures and organs designed to handle such matters in a dignified way. We must now give those organs time to look into the grievances that have been expressed and allow due process to be followed."

President Mugabe said grievances or contradictions in the party were inevitable, but must be dealt with through properly laid down Zanu-PF procedures.

He said opposition parties and their Western sponsors were celebrating at the demonstrations in the revolutionary party, hoping that it would lead to its disintegration.

"So, why should we give them that chance to smile, to laugh and to wish us death?" said President Mugabe. "How does that help us? We say we are from the same family. To go to the streets to insult each other?

"When we insult our leaders who are in the wrong, people like Morgan (Tsvangirai) will say just look and listen to what they are now doing. Those that are doing something bad and they are members of the party, you sit down with them and solve the problem. If the person is from a branch, you sit down and solve the problem. Not to go out shouting saying, aah this is what our chairman is doing, Talk about it and if there problem it should be referred to the top leadership and let it be solved there.

"If the problem is in  the district, those from the district have no right to invite those from other districts to hear the case or to invite them to join them in demonstrations because they no longer want their chairman. No they must sit down and follow the procedure, the charges he is facing, what wrong he is doing and you forward the problem to the provincial leaders."

President Mugabe said the provincial structures should not demonstrate, but listen to lower structures' grievances and take them to the national leadership.

"If the person is a provincial chairman, haa. we no longer want him/her so who are you complaining to?" he said.

"You are the ones who chose him, sit down and have a meeting with delegates from other provinces and at the disciplinary committee you raise the issue, like what happened the other day.

"That is where problems like that are dealt with. We will always listen to the problems. We might take long to deal with the case, maybe the whole night, trying to solve the problem but will eventually deal with it, that is what we do in Zanu-PF."

President Mugabe warned party officials against taking internal issues to the media saying: "We cannot run the party from newspaper headlines or angry placards or from Twitter or social media. We can't run the country that way. These phones are now a problem."

President Mugabe said the opposition parties were in a quandary because of successive electoral defeats to Zanu-PF from the harmonised elections in 2013 to by-elections that the revolutionary party had been bagging.

He said the opposition parties were now targeting the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission.

"We look with glee as they daily turn on each other, while pretending to chase a mirage they have termed 'grand coalition' apparently unaware of the grand defeat that stares at them in the face," said President Mugabe.

"Unable to face our mighty party, they have now turned their guns on the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission, itself a constitutional body mandated to run elections in our country.

"Afflicted by madness, which knows no bounds, they even seek to interfere with mundane Government tendering processes, hoping for some opportunistic fissures that might give them some slender chance."

President Mugabe added:

"They make futile noises by which they hope to besmirch and override Zimbabwe's sovereignty through attempts to involve international bodies, which have no role in the running of elections in sovereign countries.

"Shame on them! As they expend their faltering energies on such inane calls and charades, we must ourselves take full advantage of this confusion to consolidate our support on the ground in readiness for another emphatic win in the forthcoming harmonised elections."