Fear grips Zanu-PF

THE Zanu-PF national security department, which has been gripped by fear of losing the 2023 elections, has produced a report citing land barons links with the party as its possible undoing ahead of polls.

The department's report was presented at the conference in Bindura last week. The department is headed by Lovemore Matuke.

It said land barons links to  Zanu-PF were a serious danger to its electoral campaign at a time when the party was under siege from the "ever-scheming" opposition and Western countries that it said had revived their regime change machinations.

The report accused the MDC Alliance of working in cahoots with Western embassies to intensify negative narratives against the ruling party.

"In a nutshell, the regime change agenda is still much alive," the report read in part while making reference to the agenda they alleged started last year.

"Sensing imminent collapse owing to implosion within the MDC Alliance party in liaison with other detractors and with the assistance of some Western embassies intensified the narratives of legitimacy and economic crisis in Zimbabwe, and attempted to occupy the streets of all urban centres through protests, to make the country ungovernable and oust the Zanu-PF government."

It alleged that the idea was to "violently remove a constitutionally elected government through illegal means".

Zanu-PF also said the opposition was taking advantage of the economic crisis bedevilling the country and the "legitimacy crisis" to hold protests across the country leading to the removal of the governing party from power.

"Also cited was the aspect of economic challenges which detractors are terming an economic crisis whose gravity deserved intervention from international players," the report added.

"The other narrative was that of ‘legitimacy crisis' whose focus was for Zanu-PF to engage a particular opposition party in order to reach an agreement that would see the conception of a ‘transitional government' to take over from the Zanu-PF government until the 2023 harmonised elections.

"This is despite the fact that the Zanu-PF government is working with other opposition parties under Polad (the Political Actors Dialogue.)"

Zanu-PF is also afraid of failing to reclaim the urban seats, with the report showing that there was suspicion that land barons, who duped people of millions of dollars, were affiliated to the ruling party.

"The issue of land barons, especially in Harare and other urban centres has remained a thorny issue. It has remained unresolved to the extent that there are boundary disputes, especially between Harare and Mashonaland East province, and they have created uncertainty as beneficiaries fear to lose their residential stands gotten from land barons.

"Land barons have gone scot-free and this has disheartened the electorate to a greater extent more so the majority of land barons are alleged to be members of the party."

Zanu-PF is accused of creating chaos in Harare and using land to canvass for votes.

A report by the land audit commission led by Justice Tendai Uchena exposed Zanu-PF officials for using land to garner support ahead of elections, but nothing has been done to bring the criminals to book.

Zanu-PF is also fretting over the penetration of the opposition into rural areas. MDC Alliance president Nelson Chamisa is on a countrywide tour of rural areas to woo voters ahead of the 2023 elections.