Shiri slams 'unrepentant sellout'

ZANU-PF Politburo member Perrance Shiri has described Guruve South independent candidate Mr Wilbert Mubaiwa as an unrepentant sellout who was fired from the Zimbabwe National Army, expelled from Dr Joice Mujuru's party and now causing chaos in Zanu-PF by using President Mnangagwa's pictures on his campaigning material.

Mr Mubaiwa is also accused of hijacking the party's programmes.

Former Zimbabwe People First national treasurer Mr Mubaiwa campaigned under a Zanu-PF ticket during the party's primary elections, but was disqualified by the national elections directorate.
He went to file his nomination papers as an independent candidate.

Addressing hundreds of supporters in Guruve, where he handed five laptops to Horseshoe Secondary School last week, Shiri said Mr Mubaiwa was disqualified from contesting in the Zanu-PF primary elections because he was a well-known former Dr Mujuru loyalist.

"We all know that Mubaiwa was a Mujuru loyalist and his house in Malborough, Harare, was the Zimbabwe People First headquarters. He was fired by Mujuru after exhibiting ambitions to take over as the president of the party.

"He is now moving around saying Musanhi and Shiri are the ones who blocked him from contesting in our primary elections.

"What he had to do was to join our structures and wait for five years before contesting. He is now going around lying that President Mnangagwa wants to appoint him in his next Cabinet if he wins the National Assembly seat.

"That person is a vagabond who was fired from the army because of mischief. I want to make it clear that Mubaiwa is not a Zanu-PF member. We will be taking him to court to force him to stop using President Mnangagwa's pictures in his campaigning material. This is causing confusion in the constituency," said Shiri.

Mr Mubaiwa's vehicles are bearing President Mnangagwa's pictures alongside his and nowhere in his campaign posters is mentioned that he is running as an independent candidate.

Meanwhile, national youth member Paul Rwodzi also took a swipe at Mr Mubaiwa, accusing him of causing serious confusion in Guruve as well as hijacking Zanu-PF campaign programmes.

"I thank you Shiri for your urgent response to our calls as we are seized with a serious problem here. Mubaiwa is claiming that he was sent here by the President. His campaign regalia has the pictures of President Mnangagwa and he is pretending to be part of the ruling party.

"He is also hijacking party programmes. Each time we have a gathering his team just shows up handing out footballs and biscuits.

"He is also moving around claiming that he is the one giving people inputs as well as rehabilitating roads when in fact, it is the work of our party, Zanu-PF.

"To make it worse, he almost hit Patrick Dutiro with his car recently as we were coming from a Women's League rally," said Rwodzi.

Zanu-PF candidate for Guruve South, Patrick Dutiro confirmed that Mr Mubaiwa almost hit him with his car.
"I had also forgotten to tell you Shiri that he almost hit me with his car as we were leaving from the recent women convention rally here in Guruve."

Efforts to get a comment from Mr Mubaiwa were fruitless as his phone was unreachable at the time of going to print.