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'Wishful thinking for Mliswa,' says Gumbo

by Staff reporter
15 Nov 2015 at 09:14hrs | Views
Rugare Gumbo, who now acts as the spokesperson of an outfit linked to the ousted former Vice President Joice Mujuru, yesterday said it was "wishful thinking" for Mliswa to suggest Mujuru wanted to return to Zanu-PF.

"How can she go back to a party that ill-treated her like that? There is no way she is going back," he said, adding that Mujuru had made it clear she would be contesting for the presidency in the 2018 elections.

"These allegations are mere dreams which should be forgotten. It is the work of the agents who are bent on distorting information," Gumbo said.

He said Zanu-PF was paying agents to do the "dirty work of misleading the masses".

Political analyst Alois Masepe said one would have to be "insane" to want to go back to a party that was fraught with so many problems.

"It is a fact that she was ill-treated and to imagine her going back is too far-fetched. The ruling party is on fire, why would Mujuru want to go back?" he questioned.

Masepe said it would take a lot of persuasion and wooing to get the former VP to go back to a party that is "highly unstable".

He, however, said politics was very unpredictable.

"Politics is the art of the possible, so one can never be certain of how things will eventually turn out," Masepe said.

Mliswa, the former Hurungwe West MP who was kicked out of Zanu-PF together with Mujuru and several other senior members, recently told our sister paper NewsDay that the ex-VP would only be powerful if she returned to Zanu-PF.

Along with Mutasa, Gumbo and many others, Mujuru is part of a loose coalition of former Zanu-PF liberation stalwarts, reportedly mulling the formation of a party currently going by the name People First.

Mliswa claimed Mujuru was now working with Young Turks within the ruling party opposed to the ascendancy of Vice-President Emmerson Mnangagwa to the presidency.

The group (G40), according to reports, boasts among its ranks the likes of Zanu-PF political commissar Saviour Kasukuwere, Higher Education minister Jonathan Moyo and Mugabe's nephew Patrick Zhuwao.

Although they all deny belonging to a faction, this has not stopped internal party hawks from linking them to the ambitious group.

"The G40 has realised that it is losing grip. They are losing the internal war with Mnangagwa because the on-going restructuring exercise has put Mnangagwa firmly in charge. His [Mnangagwa's] people are in charge of Manicaland, Mashonaland West and Mashonaland East," claimed Mliswa.

Source - thes standard
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