Zanu-PF takes a swipe at Simba Makoni

Zanu-PF Secretary for Information and Publicity Rugare Gumbo yesterday took a swipe at criticism by Mavambo president Dr Simba Makoni that the agreement on the constitution was serving the interests of Zanu-PF and the MDC formations and not the generality of the Zimbabweans.

"It is not surprising (Dr Makoni's criticism). He does not have people and does not have any responsibility, so what should we expect from him?

"We have a responsibility, we went out on an outreach programme to find out what people wanted and that is what is in the proposed constitution and that is what was agreed upon.

"What else does he want? Which people is he talking about? What is he representing? He represents nothing but himself and I don't think he has any support at all to talk about; we are talking of millions of people who came out with these ideas," said Gumbo.

The Politburo, he said, also discussed the party's manifesto and said it would be based on the ongoing empowerment drive.

"It is going to be based on the theme of our last conference which is 'Indigenise, Empower, Develop and Create Employment'," he said.

Gumbo added that the Politburo also conducted a post-mortem of the conference that was held in Gweru last year.

"The conference went on very well indeed, we discussed that. We also received a report from the Commissariat which touched on a wide range of issues mainly focusing on restructuring our cells and villages.

"We were mainly focused on cells and villages because that is where the people are," he said.

Gumbo, however, said discussions on rules and regulations governing the conduct of primary elections would be held at a later date while the investigations on alleged corruption by senior officials in the party's Manicaland provincial executive had also been deferred.