'Zanu-PF spooks infiltrated Mujuru's NPP'

Joice Mujuru's  National People's Party (NPP) has claimed that its party has been infiltrated at all levels by the ruling party in a bid to weaken it head of the key 2018 elections.

Mujuru, who was expelled from Zanu-PF in 2014 after being accused of plotting to topple former president Robert  Mugabe, has seen her party hit by successive defections as scores of her followers retrace their steps to the ruling party.

NPP secretary-general Gift Nyandoro, who doubles as Mujuru's spokesperson, claimed that 500 State agents that had infiltrated the opposition party were now publicly rejoining Zanu-PF.

He spoke after 20 NPP youths last week crossed floors back to Zanu-PF.

"NPP under the able and iconic revolutionary leadership of ... Mujuru dismisses the so-called '20 NPP youths defection inside Zanu-PF Shake-Shake headquarters at Jongwe house' as the highest level of ideological bankruptcy and a parading of a failed political infiltration of NPP  by the agents of a regime that is confronting the reality of ultimate decimation in 2018 harmonised elections," Nyandoro fumed.

"Zimbabweans need to know that there is a world of difference between political defection and political drowning. There is no way a hyena can purport to defect from a herd of sheep and join a grouping of hyenas in the name of a defection. A hyena remains as such and it remains a hyena."

Zanu-PF secretary for youths Pupurai Togarepi told the Daily News on Sunday that contrary to allegations by Mujuru's party that NPP has been infiltrated, "the ruling party has no reason at all to focus on weakening an already weak opposition".

"If you are in contest for love and you lose to somebody, you will say that the woman was ugly but that might not necessarily be the case. The youths who came from Mujuru's party, some of them we know them and we will work with them," Togarepi said.

In a statement, the defecting youths said they strongly believed in and adhered to the founding values of the liberation struggle.

"These were discarded when Zanu-PF was captured by the former first lady Grace Mugabe and her G40 cabal. It was in defence of the revolutionary legacy that we stood by Mai Mujuru, the former vice president of Zimbabwe when she was ill-treated by the former first lady.

"Now that Operation Restore Legacy has successfully brought back order in the country, we have, therefore, freely and willingly decided to rejoin the revolutionary party, Zanu-PF, and work together with our freedom fighters and all willing citizens to rebuild our country. This is effective immediately."

A Zanu-PF politburo member who declined to be named said Mujuru was "wasting her time leading a very small organisation" that is no threat to the status quo.

Togarepi claimed Mujuru's home is Zanu-PF, and there is no way the ruling party "would work on destroying one of its own."

"Mujuru should do the right thing and come back home, she should not waste time in opposition, we want her back. The youths who came are ours and we know them, ngavauye kumusha amai Mujuru, she is a revolutionary, she should come and work with other comrades," Togarepi said.

Nyandoro said NPP's primary cause is never political expediency and opportunism.

"The cause remains that of persistent and consistent pursuit of the dismantling of Mugabeism system of impunity.  Mugabeism consists of the repressive systems, institutions, cultures and values that defined and characterised Mugabe' s corrupt, incompetent and autocratic rule.

"The tragedy of Mugabeism is that it is  a self-defeating strategy of leadership where Zanu-PF parades its own agents whom it would have planted in progressive organisations like NPP as defections.

"Zimbabweans should never be made to believe that the new administration represents a new order, rather it remains the old order that uses tired and archaic methods of mobilisation. Its unfortunate that the self parading of own failed agents of infiltration is a drift back in the past of political hypocrisy."

Nyandoro said Mujuru would stay put in NPP.

"She has no desire to go back to Egypt. As NPP goes through the intensive revolutionary cleansing of weeding out saboteurs of the people's cause, victory becomes a reality and a certainty come 2018 harmonised elections," Nyandoro said.