Mujuru became de facto President 5 years back

BELEAGUERED Vice-President Joice Mujuru and under fire Zanu PF Secretary for Didymus Mutasa allegedly assumed illegitimate power five years with Mujuru as President and Mutasa the deputy, a development which Parliament Speaker Jacob Mudenda yesterday equated with the plot to plot to oust President Robert Mugabe.

Mudenda made startling revelations yesterday as he presented the state of the party report in the absence of Mutasa, who together with Mujuru snubbed the Congress. He said the plot began in 2009.

Mudenda said until the coming in of First Lady Grace Mugabe to expose the rot in the party, Zanu PF had been hijacked by Mujuru and her allies who are reportedly funded by the United States and Europe to remove Mugabe from power.

He said Mujuru's camp manipulated structures to create a base for her, with Mutasa losing focus on his main duties and working as second-in-command to
Mujuru in their "treacherous" actions.

"Sadly, however, towards the end of this review period, particularly in the year leading to this 6th national people's congress, the party unearthed and thwarted a plot which had external underpinnings, to remove the President and first secretary of the party unconstitutionally, before or during the congress," Mudenda said.

"This plot involved some among us, under the leadership of then Vice-President Joice Teurai Ropa Mujuru and her cabal of senior politburo members, who had been enticed by the Americans and some Europeans with promises that they would pour billions of dollars into Zimbabwe once they succeeded in allying with the opposition formations to oust Zanu PF and its iconic President and first secretary from power."

Mudenda said the same people mentioned in the whistleblower website Wikileaks as hobnobbing with the "enemy" were the same people who were plotting dubious means of ousting Mugabe.

"They instead deepened their plotting, captured party and State structures through imposition, vote-buying, patronage, corruption and all sorts of treacherous intrigue to appoint where they felt sufficiently ready to oust the President, even threatening to assassinate him," he alleged.

Mudenda alleged the plot to remove Mugabe by the Mujuru camp started with the usurping of power from the centre, rigging and manipulating internal elective processes from the national level down to the cell or village and filling them with people either "bought with money" or "indoctrinated" to support their cause.

"They orchestrated sham primary elections ahead of the 2013 harmonised polls resulting in their domination of both the House of Assembly and the Senate and consequently, Cabinet," Mudenda said.

He alleged the Mujuru camp imposed their loyalists in crucial positions in the structures.

Mudenda said due to the massive scheming by the Mujuru camp, "the party became uncoordinated, with attendant policy incoherence, as the secretary for administration ensconced himself as Vice-President Mujuru's second-in-command in the faction. A lot of other ills followed, creating a chronic state of near-paralysis in the party.

"Thanks to the revelations made by the First Lady Amai Doctor Grace Mugabe, a whirlwind was unleashed which swept away the conspirators. The challenge that the party faces now, going forward from this congress, is to orient all its organs, members and functionaries in government back to its ideology and policies."