MUGABE'S HEADACHE: Will factionalism end after Congress?

President Mugabe expects the ongoing 6th National People's Congress to completely stem out factionalism that had threatened to ground his Zanu PF party with Vice President Joice Mujuru in the centre of a storm involving the plot to oust him.

On Thursday Mugabe expressed his hope in the foreword of the Central Committee report that was adopted by Congress.
 
He also set out Zanu-PF's agenda and strategies going forward to ensure it delivered on its election promises and Zim-Asset policy document.
 
"Lately, we have taken concrete steps to stem factionalism, but after this Congress, we should have nothing more of this scourge," said Mugabe who seem to have gathered his might during the party's crucial gathering.
 
"We cannot countenance a situation where Zanu-PF risks being succeeded by something that we cannot define within its ideology, some other contraption that is not Zanu-PF, but calling itself by its name and claiming to be Zanu-PF.
 
"It is indeed in this regard, that this Congress must set a deadline for the establishment of the Chitepo College of Ideology without further ado, amongst other measures designed to entrench and promote our party's ideology."
 
Mugabe said there were a number of internal impediments to it delivering on its mandate.
 
He said the party had fared badly in restructuring itself, recruiting more members and growing in tangible ways, a development he attributed to the commissariat department.
 
"We need to refocus the party commissariat work away from this current jostling and pushing for positions, which in turn has bred the current scourge of factionalism, back to the party's ideology, robust mass mobilisation and winning the nation's hearts and minds of the people of Zimbabwe to support Zim-Asset.

"This congress needs to give a clear and unambiguous direction on this important matter," Mugabe said Thursday.
 
He said inconsistencies in internal party elections had since 2009 been characterised by "intrigue, blatant rigging, rampant impositions and shameless vote-buying" as people jostled to position themselves in the "so-called succession debate".
 
"This Congress must direct the party to establish, without further ado, a professional National Elections Directorate or Party Elections Commission which has remained moot for too long a time as a way of entrenching a democratic culture in our internal processes.
 
President Mugabe said the set of measures would include trimming down the size of the Politburo, reducing bureaucracy as well as the establishment of a dedicated strategic think tank at party headquarters.