Mugabe's pre-emptive strike saves Kasukuwere

PRESIDENT Robert Mugabe last Friday reportedly pre-empted a potentially explosive rebellion, where aggrieved central committee members, particularly from Mashonaland Central, had planned to boo the party's embattled political commissar, Saviour Kasukuwere, and block him from presenting his commissariat report.

Acting on reports supplied to him beforehand, Mugabe invited all the three provinces aggrieved by Kasukuwere's alleged misrule – Midlands, Mashonaland Central and Masvingo – to present their petitions to the politburo for onward transmission to the party's disciplinary committee to deal with the issue.
ADVERTISING
inRead invented by Teads

In his opening remarks, Mugabe warned that the chaos, which was rocking the party had the net effect of giving the opposition, particularly MDC-T's Morgan Tsvangirai, an easy victory in the 2018 elections.

Sources said Mashonaland Central wanted to stop Kasukuwere from presenting his report at the central committee meeting and have him ejected to face the music.

"The plan was to have Mashonaland Central's central committee member, Ephraim Mavhangira, move a motion to have Kasukuwere put on the agenda, but after the President's speech, he developed cold feet. If Mavhangira had done that, then Midlands, Masvingo and Bulawayo were going to back the motion," a source said.

But, Zanu-PF spokesperson, Simon Khaya Moyo, said Mugabe's call for submission of grievances to the politburo was not specifically on the Kasukuwere issue, but a blanket call on those who were unhappy in the party.

"That has always been our position as a party and the President made it clear that people must follow procedure. He was not focusing on an individual, no, this is how we have been operating as a party," he said.

Last week, disgruntled Zanu-PF members in Mashonaland and Midlands provinces held spontaneous demonstrations against Kasukuwere, accusing him of fanning factionalism and tribalism, creating parallel structures and plotting Mugabe's ouster.