News / National
'Zanu-PF set to split' - Report
20 Jun 2014 at 06:40hrs | Views
COLOGNE - President Robert Mugabe's ruling Zanu PF party, is set to split, due to incompatible political damage among it's senior leadership, caused by Mugabe's explosive succession race, which has seen military chefs stepping in to cherry-pick a replacement candidate for their growing industrial complex, in a bid to perpetuate the status quo and protect their vast wealth interests, The Telescope News reported.
According to a senior party politburo member, who has also been in government since independence, the liberation movement, is teething on the precipice of a tectonic rupture, between the two skermishing factions of Vice President Joice Mujuru, and her chief nemisis, Justice minister Emmerson Mnangagwa, who now looks set to be the next president after reportedly striking a secret deal with the army. The country's military generals and top security services bosses, have not hidden their wish and will to endorse Mnangagwa to takeover from Mugabe, especially Zimbabwe Defence Forces (ZDF) Commander, Constantine Chiwenga.
Chiwenga only two years ago made the message loud and clear, during Mnangagwa's 66th birthday banquet at his Sherwood Kwekwe farm, where the soldier was invited as a special guest. "Mnangagwa is the only surviving member of the first politburo meeting because in the first days, the president (Mugabe) did not attend the politburo," Chiwenga said at the time. "All the others who attended the first meetings are now dead. I'm sure he is alive for a reason which we all know."
The Telescope News claims that Chiwenga has dropped his own initial ambitions to be president, to rally behind Mnangagwa. There are also fresh revelations that Chiwenga, does not support VP Mujuru, because he had frosty relations with her late husband, General Solomon Mujuru. Our politburo source corraborated that, the late general allegedly attempted to block Chiwenga's promotion from Zimbabwe National Army (ZNA) Commander, to ZDF Commander, thus this vendetta still rages on today with the late Mujuru's wife.
"Zanu PF is already split into the two factions you have mentioned," said the politburo member. "It is only a matter of time before, it becomes official. I can tell you that whoever prevails between Amai Mujuru and Mnangagwa, as president of this country, will purge the other faction out of government and Zanu PF, therefore sending them into oblivion. We are going to experience this nasty split soon."
"Mnangagwa was almost VP in December 2004, actually he won that bid, but the cunning Solomon made Mugabe to believe that Mnangagwa would force him away as president, once he became his deputy, thus we ended up with this gimmick of promoting a woman candidate into the presidium just to stop Emmerson. The story is even more complicated, because the late ZDF Commander, Vitalis Zvinavashe, was also tricked into retirement and promised the VP slot by Mujuru's camp, and it turned out to be a plan to weaken him and replace him with a general sympathetic to Solomon Mujuru. However, it appears Mnangagwa quickly read into the plot, and made sure that Chiwenga got the powerful post. Those in the military will tell you, that Chiwenga's rise took them by surprise, because it was engineered by Mnangagwa. So we have a case of Chiwenga, now ready to return the favour to the minister by using his powers, to force Mugabe to endorse him, as has already happened behind the scenes in their Joint Operations Command (JOC) discreet meetings."
VP Mujuru's top ally, Didymus Mutasa who doubles as presidential affairs minister, this month betrayed the anxiety of pending expulsions and counter-expulsions of political foes not following Mugabe and Mujuru's line saying such "elements" will be "flushed out", in apparent reference to information minister, Jonathan Moyo, who has been causing sleepless nights for the Mujuru camp, after being singled out as the brains behind State media's exposure of corruption rot, mainly targeting what many see as chief executives of parastatals run by the VP's inner circle.
"You were talking about the issue of weevils here. Way back we used to treat weevils by spraying gamatox (pesticide) and they would all die," Mutasa recently told Zanu PF party youths in Mutare, indirectly calling for Moyo to be expelled to end factionalism.
"Our weevils, if you know about them, which we are castigating now, please apply gamatox on them. If you do that we will be left with one camp and not to say there is this camp and that camp."
In the past many Zanu PF heavyweights, have been expelled from the party and could not be re-admitted because of their personal rivalry with Mugabe. These include, the late Edgar Tekere, Zanu PF's last secretary general; Dumiso Dabengwa, a former politburo strongman now back to Zapu as it's president and former finance minister, Simba Makoni, who is now leader of the Mavambo Party.
Further intelligence obtained by this publication shows that, Mnangagwa's faction has already compiled a "black-book" with a list of names associated with Mujuru's faction from cell structures, right up to district and provincial levels provided by their grassroot members for expulsion, if and when they take control of the party. We can also confirm that, Mujuru, Mutasa and current Zanu PF spokeman, Rugare Gumbo, are all prime targets for explusion from the party by Mnangagwa's backers.
Mnangagwa and Gumbo do not see eye to eye, following clashes of seniority between the two in the Midlands province where they hail from. Gumbo claims to be Mnangagwa's senior in the province, while others support the latter as a godfather of the area.
It is now clear that once Mugabe vacates office, Zanu PF is going to split into two main groups as has happened with the MDC in 2005, party officials said.The EU's top diplomat in Harare, Aldo Dell'Ariccia, admitted on Tuesady that Mugabe is the "glue" holding Zanu PF together, and that Zimbabwe's future remains uncertain.
"There is no leadership crisis in Zimbabwe because you have a leader who has been able to hold together all these contradicting forces. We are talking about the reality of the situation which is there now, not about what will happen in the future," said the envoy. "Of course, there is uncertainty, but we are not worried about that for now because we would want to take advantage of the leadership that is there and work with it for the good of all."
According to a senior party politburo member, who has also been in government since independence, the liberation movement, is teething on the precipice of a tectonic rupture, between the two skermishing factions of Vice President Joice Mujuru, and her chief nemisis, Justice minister Emmerson Mnangagwa, who now looks set to be the next president after reportedly striking a secret deal with the army. The country's military generals and top security services bosses, have not hidden their wish and will to endorse Mnangagwa to takeover from Mugabe, especially Zimbabwe Defence Forces (ZDF) Commander, Constantine Chiwenga.
Chiwenga only two years ago made the message loud and clear, during Mnangagwa's 66th birthday banquet at his Sherwood Kwekwe farm, where the soldier was invited as a special guest. "Mnangagwa is the only surviving member of the first politburo meeting because in the first days, the president (Mugabe) did not attend the politburo," Chiwenga said at the time. "All the others who attended the first meetings are now dead. I'm sure he is alive for a reason which we all know."
The Telescope News claims that Chiwenga has dropped his own initial ambitions to be president, to rally behind Mnangagwa. There are also fresh revelations that Chiwenga, does not support VP Mujuru, because he had frosty relations with her late husband, General Solomon Mujuru. Our politburo source corraborated that, the late general allegedly attempted to block Chiwenga's promotion from Zimbabwe National Army (ZNA) Commander, to ZDF Commander, thus this vendetta still rages on today with the late Mujuru's wife.
"Zanu PF is already split into the two factions you have mentioned," said the politburo member. "It is only a matter of time before, it becomes official. I can tell you that whoever prevails between Amai Mujuru and Mnangagwa, as president of this country, will purge the other faction out of government and Zanu PF, therefore sending them into oblivion. We are going to experience this nasty split soon."
"Mnangagwa was almost VP in December 2004, actually he won that bid, but the cunning Solomon made Mugabe to believe that Mnangagwa would force him away as president, once he became his deputy, thus we ended up with this gimmick of promoting a woman candidate into the presidium just to stop Emmerson. The story is even more complicated, because the late ZDF Commander, Vitalis Zvinavashe, was also tricked into retirement and promised the VP slot by Mujuru's camp, and it turned out to be a plan to weaken him and replace him with a general sympathetic to Solomon Mujuru. However, it appears Mnangagwa quickly read into the plot, and made sure that Chiwenga got the powerful post. Those in the military will tell you, that Chiwenga's rise took them by surprise, because it was engineered by Mnangagwa. So we have a case of Chiwenga, now ready to return the favour to the minister by using his powers, to force Mugabe to endorse him, as has already happened behind the scenes in their Joint Operations Command (JOC) discreet meetings."
"You were talking about the issue of weevils here. Way back we used to treat weevils by spraying gamatox (pesticide) and they would all die," Mutasa recently told Zanu PF party youths in Mutare, indirectly calling for Moyo to be expelled to end factionalism.
"Our weevils, if you know about them, which we are castigating now, please apply gamatox on them. If you do that we will be left with one camp and not to say there is this camp and that camp."
In the past many Zanu PF heavyweights, have been expelled from the party and could not be re-admitted because of their personal rivalry with Mugabe. These include, the late Edgar Tekere, Zanu PF's last secretary general; Dumiso Dabengwa, a former politburo strongman now back to Zapu as it's president and former finance minister, Simba Makoni, who is now leader of the Mavambo Party.
Further intelligence obtained by this publication shows that, Mnangagwa's faction has already compiled a "black-book" with a list of names associated with Mujuru's faction from cell structures, right up to district and provincial levels provided by their grassroot members for expulsion, if and when they take control of the party. We can also confirm that, Mujuru, Mutasa and current Zanu PF spokeman, Rugare Gumbo, are all prime targets for explusion from the party by Mnangagwa's backers.
Mnangagwa and Gumbo do not see eye to eye, following clashes of seniority between the two in the Midlands province where they hail from. Gumbo claims to be Mnangagwa's senior in the province, while others support the latter as a godfather of the area.
It is now clear that once Mugabe vacates office, Zanu PF is going to split into two main groups as has happened with the MDC in 2005, party officials said.The EU's top diplomat in Harare, Aldo Dell'Ariccia, admitted on Tuesady that Mugabe is the "glue" holding Zanu PF together, and that Zimbabwe's future remains uncertain.
"There is no leadership crisis in Zimbabwe because you have a leader who has been able to hold together all these contradicting forces. We are talking about the reality of the situation which is there now, not about what will happen in the future," said the envoy. "Of course, there is uncertainty, but we are not worried about that for now because we would want to take advantage of the leadership that is there and work with it for the good of all."
Source - www.thetelescopenews.com
