News / National
Petina Gappah targets Mukupe in smear campaign?
24 May 2018 at 09:27hrs | Views
LAWYER and writer, Petina Gappah, has reportedly been exposed for meddling in Zanu-PF internal affairs, after she allegedly attempted to use a phantom Twitter character to have Finance deputy minister Terrence Mukupe axed from the ruling party.
Things went awry for Gappah after she sent a direct message to a wrong account on Tuesday and the conversation was splashed on Twitter, although she denied writing the message, saying her account was cloned.
In a direct message to a phantom Twitter personality, Matigary (@Realmatigari), Gappah allegedly tried to enlist his services to bring down Mukupe.
"We need to start a campaign to get rid of Mukupe. He adds no value to the party at all. He undermines and sabotages. He has to go," she wrote in a private conversation that was later put in the public domain.
Gappah, who was part of a government delegation that travelled with President Emmerson Mnangagwa to Davos for the World Economic Forum in January and has been reportedly put in charge of handling the authorities' international public relations onslaught.
Gappah has openly attacked MDC-T leader, Neson Chamisa on her social media accounts, but denied having any connections with Zanu-PF and instead passed herself of as an independent observer.
In exposing her, Matigary said Gappah must come clean on her political connections instead of misleading her followers, yet she was meddling in internal Zanu-PF politics.
"Today @VascoDaGappah (Gappah's Twitter handle) sent this to my inbox. Here she is plotting around internal Zanu-PF politics and there she says she isn't Zanu-PF," the Twitter persona wrote.
Mukupe did not help his cause, as a day later, he was quoted saying the army will not allow Chamisa to take over in the event he wins. This triggered a massive backlash and a reprimand from his party, Zanu-PF.
Mukupe's bad day was made even worse when he went on an onslaught against human rights lawyer, Doug Coltart, who had asked him to retract his statements.
The deputy minister in a message accused Coltart's father David of being a Selous Scout.
"Having spoken to you before, thought you were progressive, but I guess the Selous Scout spirit that runs in your family is what drives your actions," an unapologetic Mukupe told Coltart.
He then went on to use a fake picture of David inviting more scorn.
Gappah denied she had written the message saying: "No it was not," she said.
"My account was cloned. And frankly, Mukupe is doing a good job of smearing himself with no help from outsiders."
Things went awry for Gappah after she sent a direct message to a wrong account on Tuesday and the conversation was splashed on Twitter, although she denied writing the message, saying her account was cloned.
In a direct message to a phantom Twitter personality, Matigary (@Realmatigari), Gappah allegedly tried to enlist his services to bring down Mukupe.
"We need to start a campaign to get rid of Mukupe. He adds no value to the party at all. He undermines and sabotages. He has to go," she wrote in a private conversation that was later put in the public domain.
Today @VascoDaGappah sent me this message to my inbox.. Here she is plotting around internal Zanu politics. And then she says she isn't Zanu @DavidColtart @ZimMediaReview @tmukupe @BitiTendai @263Chat pic.twitter.com/OFaRwnmQwX
— Matigary (@Realmatigari) May 22, 2018
Gappah, who was part of a government delegation that travelled with President Emmerson Mnangagwa to Davos for the World Economic Forum in January and has been reportedly put in charge of handling the authorities' international public relations onslaught.
Gappah has openly attacked MDC-T leader, Neson Chamisa on her social media accounts, but denied having any connections with Zanu-PF and instead passed herself of as an independent observer.
In exposing her, Matigary said Gappah must come clean on her political connections instead of misleading her followers, yet she was meddling in internal Zanu-PF politics.
"Today @VascoDaGappah (Gappah's Twitter handle) sent this to my inbox. Here she is plotting around internal Zanu-PF politics and there she says she isn't Zanu-PF," the Twitter persona wrote.
Mukupe did not help his cause, as a day later, he was quoted saying the army will not allow Chamisa to take over in the event he wins. This triggered a massive backlash and a reprimand from his party, Zanu-PF.
Mukupe's bad day was made even worse when he went on an onslaught against human rights lawyer, Doug Coltart, who had asked him to retract his statements.
The deputy minister in a message accused Coltart's father David of being a Selous Scout.
"Having spoken to you before, thought you were progressive, but I guess the Selous Scout spirit that runs in your family is what drives your actions," an unapologetic Mukupe told Coltart.
He then went on to use a fake picture of David inviting more scorn.
Gappah denied she had written the message saying: "No it was not," she said.
"My account was cloned. And frankly, Mukupe is doing a good job of smearing himself with no help from outsiders."
Source - newsday
