Signs are not looking good for Mujuru and her supporters

Although it is said a week is a long time in politics, and there are still a full two weeks to go to Zanu-PF's much-anticipated elective congress slated for early December, the signs are not good for embattled Vice President Joice Mujuru and her supporters.

In fact, Solomon Mujuru's 59-year-old widow and her allies are indeed up against it now, to put it mildly, as next month's congress approaches following the brutal shellacking that they received in the politburo on Thursday night.

Some people might even call this humiliation, at the clear instigation of the evidently powerful First Lady Grace Mugabe and supporters of party strongman Justice Minister Emmerson Mnangagwa, a total annihilation.

If there is any small consolation for them in what happened on Thursday, which history will surely remember as the night of long butcher knives, it would be that Mnangagwa and his lieutenants suffered an uncannily similar decimation a decade ago at the hands of the wily leader of the party, President Robert Mugabe, but are now back with a bang.

But even that may be quite some stretch of the imagination at the moment.

Consider this. Mugabe and the Mnangagwa camp moved with deadly intent to neuter Mujuru's bravest and most energetic ally, Rugare Gumbo, by suspending him for a politically fatal five years, given the former party spokesman's age.

And they did not stop there.

The war veterans constituency being as important as it is both in Zanu-PF and the national body politic generally, the party executioners went for the jugular and outrightly expelled from within their ranks the popular and dissenting war vets leader, Jabulani Sibanda.

Chipinge South legislator and Central Committee member Enoch Porusingazi was also not spared the whip, and was suspended for five years.

Very importantly too, given the party's forthcoming elective congress, the politburo also upheld the recent votes of no confidence passed against provincial chairmen Calisto Gwanetsa (Masvingo), Amos Midzi (Harare), Jason Machaya (Midlands) and Andrew Langa (Matabeleland South) - with Manicaland provincial boss John Mvundura being issued with a seemingly inexplicable written reprimand.

Then there were the less important underlings who suffered collateral damage, with the politburo upholding the no confidence votes passed against Masvingo Women's League chairperson Shylet Uyoyo and the province's Youth League chairperson Oliver Huruva, as well as youth league official Tongai Mangomana.

Most revealingly, controversial Harare Youth League provincial chairperson and uber Grace zealot, Godwin Gomwe — who has also had a vote of no confidence passed against him by his colleagues — was not similarly guillotined.

The message to party members in all this was crystal clear: toe the party line, or else!

Not many, including the Mujuru camp itself, would have anticipated this chillingly stunning and kamikaze-like onslaught.

And it may be checkmate for Mujuru and team.

The question for Mujuru and her dispirited supporters is, will it now be fight or flight, and to what possible effect either way, particularly given that the clear message that has come out of all this is that anyone who crosses Grace's path is mince meat?

And for Gushongo, the equally critical question is, has he in fact planted the seeds for his own and Zanu-PF's ultimate demise by annihilating the Mujuru camp?

Indeed, who among the party's many zealous cadres, some of whom have even committed murder to advance its undemocratic causes, can be absolutely sure about where they stand from today onwards?

For, if first Mnangagwa, and now Mujuru and their senior lieutenants can be treated as brutally as they all have, despite their lofty party positions, what lowly party member would dare to question the party's bigwigs, or the tsunami "bedroom coup" that has allegedly hit State House?

Only time will tell what the endgame will be.