Zanu-PF hawks turn on Kasukuwere

Some Zanu-PF hardliners are turning on the party's new political commissar Saviour Kasukuwere as relations within the so-called Gang of Four continue to fray and close allies of VP Emmerson Mnangagwa flex their muscles.

Sources said yesterday that the stunning turn of events follows growing criticism within sections of the party that Kasukuwere has grown "too ambitious and too big for his boots" which needed urgent "nipping in the bud".

The new crisis to hit President Robert Mugabe's warring party comes at a time that the nonagenarian is battling old age and ill-health, and a messy split in Zanu-PF, which has recently seen liberation struggle pioneers forming a competing "Zanu-PF" that is flying under the name Zanu People First.

The sources said in the latest party ructions, Kasukuwere and other young turks, referred to as Generation 40, were now pitted against supporters of Mnangagwa who were determined to make sure that the party strongman succeeded Mugabe.