Zanu-PF faction leaders living in fear as siege mood grips the party

THE movers and shakers in Zanu-PF's factional fights are living in constant fear in the wake of escalating incidents of violence in several parts of the country, the Financial Gazette reported.

Tension is currently high across party structures, as comrades turn against comrades - in probably the ugliest infighting to grip Zanu-PF since its formation in 1963.

Key players in the power-plays now fear for their lives as the strife-torn party hurtles towards its watershed congress, which opens on December 2. Zanu-PF insiders said the major actors in the factional wars are not leaving anything to chance, and have beefed up their security. A faction linked to Justice Minister Emmerson Mnangagwa has made a dramatic rebound after having lost control of top party organs to a rival camp aligned to Vice President Joice Mujuru.

Buoyed by support from President Robert Mugabe and his wife, Grace, the Mnangagwa faction has taken the gloves off, and has largely succeeded in rooting out their rivals from positions of influence. Since the Central Committee elections started, those seen as aligned to the embattled Vice President have found the going tough.

Mujuru herself has failed to make it into the Central Committee after her Curriculum Vitae (CV) was thrown out by members of the rival camp, who have seized control of internal party processes. The Vice President, having resisted calls for her to resign by the First Lady, faces her waterloo at congress unless she is saved by her reluctant boss.

Zanu-PF secretary for administration, Didymus Mutasa, a Mujuru ally, is also staring the end of his career at the five-day congress having failed to make it into the policy-making organ of the party. A Central Committee seat offers a passage into the Politburo - the highest party organ - although Zanu-PF's constitution allows its leader to appoint 10 more members into the 245- member Central Committee, which acts on behalf of congress when it is not in session.

As the onslaught on suspected pro-Mujuru backers reaches fever pitch, violence has flared up across the country and seems to be gaining intensity by the day. Comrades who held hands across the factional lines as they joined forces to crush the opposition Movement for Democratic Change at the July 31 polls, are unleashing a reign of terror on their fellows along factional lines.

Youths suspected to be from Mt Darwin, besieged Labour Minister, Nicholas Goche's vehicle as they spoiled to get a piece of him, accusing him of being part of a clique plotting to assassinate the incumbent. With some throwing stones and others wielding placards, the bussed youths threatened to deal with Goche.

After having his CV denied, which he wanted to submit for consideration into the Central Committee, Goche's path to leave the elections venue in Mashonaland West was blockaded by the rowdy youths and only cleared the way for the embattled minister after the intervention of Minister of Environment, Saviour Kasukuwere. Goche suspects the youths had been unleashed on him by Kasukuwere.

In Masvingo, Kudakwashe Bhasikiti, the Provincial Affairs Minister, was also targeted for violence. No reports of injuries were received. In addition to purging the party of those supporting party bigwigs fingered for plotting to kill the President, the violence is largely meant to intimidate them. Mutasa declined to speak yesterday saying, "I don't want to speak to the Press."

Police spokesperson, Charity Charamba, could not be reached for comment as her phone rang without being answered. Zanu-PF spokesperson Simon Khaya-Moyo and commissar, Webster Shamhu could also not be reached for comment.
With only five days remaining before a new Zanu-PF leadership is elected to preside over the party's affairs until the next congress in 2019, Mbare, one of the oldest high-density suburbs in Zimbabwe, has emerged as the hotbed of Zanu-PF political expressions of violence and intimidation.

Scores of Mujuru supporters in Mbare have been beaten up in the past three weeks by their counterparts in the Mnangagwa camp. "Too many people are being beaten up here," said Jim Kunaka, former youth leader for the Harare province, who was himself violently bludgeoned and left for dead three weeks ago. "They want to intimidate people they suspect are linked to Mai Mujuru . . . It is all about intimidation just before congress, but we are not cowed. We are going to congress," he said.

There are also reports of retaliatory attacks targeting members aligned to the Mnangagwa faction. The bludgeoning few weeks ago of Kunaka, who is viewed as all too powerful in Mbare as the suspected leader of the shadowy terror group, Chipangano, which has left a fair share of victims of violence in its wake in previous elections, marks a poignant role reversal in an ironic show of how the mighty have fallen.

Many an opposition supporter have suffered violence and intimidation at the hands of Kunaka and his sidekicks of the alleged terror outfit. With the Mujuru camp having being put on the defensive by the Mnangagwa faction, following the President Mugabe and First Lady's public displays of a leaning towards the Justice Minister's side after Mujuru has been discredited on the back of allegedly plotting against the head of State, many of her supporters have either been ousted from party structures, been victims of brutal bashing and advances or both. Amidst all the violence, fingers are being pointed back and forth with accusations of selling out traded.