Zanu-PF, ANC accuse opposition parties of plotting coups

ZANU-PF and South Africa's ruling African National Congress (ANC) Wednesday said they were concerned about the formation of new political parties and civic groups they accused of plotting to dislodge them from power.

This followed a Harare meeting attended by senior leadership from the two liberation movements.

In a communique they issued after the meeting, the parties said they were "concerned with the proliferation of opposition political parties and civil society organisations which is aimed at destabilising and subsequently dislodge all former liberation movements from governing power."

President Emmerson Mnangagwa and his Zanu-PF party have come under pressure to remedy a debilitating economic crises from the opposition MDC.

The ruling party was left shaken past three weeks when the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions and some citizen movements called for a three day job stay away which turned riotous, eliciting brutal reaction from the state security apparatus.

South African opposition Democratic Alliance (DA) has also upped pressure on the Zanu-PF led administration to fix the deteriorating economic and political situation next door.

In their communique, Zanu-PF and ANC also agreed Mnangagwa's narrow victory last July was clean.

The MDC continues to claim poll fraud by the incumbent.

ANC accepted Mnangagwa's controversial election noting endorsements from regional power block Sadc and continental body the African Union describing the poll as peaceful and credible.

"…hence there is no legitimacy issue surrounding the Presidency," the communique further read.

ANC has called on the parties to "work closely together and come up with practical solutions to address the socio-economic and political challenges currently facing Zimbabwe" adding that problems confronting Zimbabwe were a result of sanctions imposed on the country by Western countries.

Zanu-PF and ANC said they were aware of the "significance of social media in advancing their shared revolutionary objectives, principles, values, ideals, customs and practices, hence the need for coming up with strategic tools for coordinated deployment on this very lethal warfront."