'Zanu-PF hijacked by gay gangsters'

As Zanu-PF hurtles towards its December elective congress set for December, internecine fights for influential positions turned nasty yesterday, with claims the party had been hijacked by 'gay gangsters' who are flouting its constitution.

The name-calling and mudslinging worsened at the weekend after the public media ran articles linking Mashonaland West provincial chairperson Temba Mliswa to the United States spy-agency, Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). In turn, Mliswa accused Information minister Jonathan Moyo of planting the stories and counter-claimed the politburo member  himself was one linked to the CIA.

Yesterday, Mliswa held a press conference in the capital where he went ballistic, attacking  several cabinet ministers, among them  Moyo, Water minister Saviour Kasukuwere, Justice minister Emmerson Mnangagwa and politburo member Patrick Zhuwawo, other  party bigwigs and the state-run, but publicly-owned media, which he said was now being run by "gay gangsters".

Mliswa said Moyo, Kasukuwere, Mnangagwa and Zhuwawo were power hungry. Some of the attacks bordered on defamation as Mliswa did not table proof at the media briefing.

He also unwittingly questioned Mugabe's leadership style.

"You have a situation clearly where we belong to a party which is run by a leader who is very constitutional, but some of us within the party are starting to wonder whether the party has been hijacked. Is the party now under the control of gay gangsters?" queried Mliswa.

Mugabe has not hidden his disdain for gays and homosexuals at one time saying they were less than dogs and pigs.

"We know who professor is (Jonathan Moyo, Information Minister), but when the time comes we will begin to ask the questions, what is this man doing amongst us? He lost an election, has a position because people like myself and others won so that the president is empowered to appoint him," Mliswa said.

"We have a group of people who have resorted to being power brokers. It is a syndicate of gay people, what would you be doing shopping in New York with a man and not with your wife."

Zanu-PF is torn into two main factions – one reportedly led by Vice-President Joice Mujuru and the other by Mnangagwa.

While Mujuru and Mnangagwa have adamantly denied leading any factions or harbouring ambitions to take over from Mugabe, the president has admitted to the existence of the camps.

Mliswa inadvertently confirmed his allegiance to the Mujuru camp and boasted of ending the dominance of leaders from Mugabe's rural home, Zvimba.

"Young as we are, we are now starting to question the leadership and saying may they please rein in these errant comrades. I have asked Minister Mnangagwa, as a clan brother, if he has seen it fit to trust (Minister Saviour) Kasukuwere who denied him the (vice presidency) seat that had been lobbied for him by all provinces. I have asked if he now trusts (Jonathan) Moyo now. It makes a grouping of three power hungry people and one wonders who will lead the other when they get power," the former fitness trainer said.

"It is about congress and nothing else, it is about who controls which province. They are fighting, especially in Mashonaland West. They are under pressure from the faction, they are being told that they have let Mliswa get away with power. Mashonaland West has always been a prerogative of the Zvimba people and I had to break that up, my election was the first in the history of the province in which two Zvimba people Walter Chidhakwa and Nimrod Chombo lost."

Moyo and Kasukuwere have been linked to the Mnangagwa camp, while Mliswa and his uncle, party secretary for administration Didymus Mutasa, were reportedly aligned to the Mujuru faction.

In the run-up to the 2004 congress, Mnangagwa had the backing six provinces to assume the vice-presidency before the party ordered a change of the constitution to indicate that one of the vice presidents should be a woman, leading to the elevation of Mujuru amid the storm of the Tsholotsho debacle that had allegedly sort to subvert Mujuru's ascendency.

Now as another congress beckons, Mujuru and Mnangagwa factions are reportedly locked in another war of attrition as they gear up to eventually take over from Mugabe.

Last night Kasukuwere declined to comment on the matter, while efforts to get comments from Moyo, Mnangagwa and Zhuwao were in vain.

Mliswa denied having benefited from the United States benevolence, instead pointed an accusing finger at Moyo for being the mastermind of the CIA in the country by virtue of having been employed by the Ford Foundation in Kenya.

He said there were rumours that he was going to ask Mugabe to step-down and allow Mujuru to take charge.

"There is a rumour that Mliswa is so courageous to the extent that he was going to stand up at congress and call for the president to resign and allow Mujuru to take over," Mliswa said. "But it is these characters I have mentioned who are linked to the plot to ask the president to step-down, Tyson (Kasukuwere), Moyo and Patrick Zhuwawo," said Mliswa.

He accused the politburo, chaired by Mugabe, of flouting the party constitution.

"There is a central committee which is the principal organ of the party in between congresses and the politburo reports to the central committee," Mliswa said. "I am a member of the central committee by virtue of my position as provincial chair and the politburo reports to the central committee, they are meeting and not reporting back to the central committee, which is in violation of the constitution."