Mugabe students' rally cancelled

GOVERNMENT has cancelled President Robert Mugabe's tertiary students' interface rally which was scheduled to take place in Harare tomorrow following new political developments that saw the military intervening in an operation to "fish out criminal elements" within the ruling Zanu-PF party.

Higher and Tertiary Education deputy minister Godfrey Gandawa told NewsDay yesterday that the rally had been postponed indefinitely.

"We have notified our institutions countrywide of the postponement and advised them that we shall have the same at an appropriate time," Gandawa said.

Asked what had motivated the decision to postpone the rally which was supposed to be addressed by Mugabe and his wife Grace, the deputy minister curtly said: "Circumstances beyond our control."

Mugabe has been holding interface rallies across the country with youths which have been used to attack a faction linked to former Vice-President Emmerson Mnangagwa and he was supposed to meet the students in Harare.

Due to the public attacks targeted at Mnangagwa, the military on Tuesday night "stepped in" and confined Mugabe to his house while they arrested Cabinet ministers and Zanu-PF officials they labelled as the "criminal elements surrounding the President".