'Mutasa hearing on with or without him'

Pupurayi Togarepi, the Zanu-PF youth league chairperson, insists former party bigwig Didymus Mutasa's proposed disciplinary hearing will proceed whether he turns up or not.

Togarepi, who is one of the six-member disciplinary committee set up by President Robert Mugabe to deal with Mutasa's alleged misdemeanours, said the committee's verdict would not be dependent on whether Mutasa attends the hearing.

The other members of the committee chaired by Vice President Phelekezela Mphoko are Patrick Chinamasa, secretary for legal affairs; Savior Kasukuwere, political commissar; Kembo Mohadi, secretary for security; and Mugabe's wife Grace, chairperson of the Women's League.

The mooted hearing comes amid calls by some party hawks such as Oppah Muchinguri-Kashiri and Kasukuwere to have Mutasa expelled from the party forthwith.

"The process will not stop whether Mutasa comes or not as it is his constitutional right not to attend.  It is his own business if he does not come as he is claiming and it will not change anything as we will go ahead and sit as a committee.

"Zanu-PF is bigger than an individual and Mutasa has been part of the process for his entire life.

"He knows how it works," Togarepi said.

He said he would not predict the outcome of the hearing before the sitting.

"I can refer you to the chairperson, vice president Mphoko on that matter but we are waiting for him to set the date and time for the hearing. We are all looking forward to it," Togarepi said.

Mutasa has dismissed the hearing which wants to question him for his remarks describing Zanu-PF's damp squib "elective" congress that was held in Harare in December last year as "null and void".

He has also threatened to take legal action against Zanu-PF's leadership, seeking to nullify the appointments made by Mugabe at the disputed congress.

He has also written to Sadc leaders asking them to mediate in the political discord within Zanu-PF.

Mutasa is adamant that the party's December congress was illegal, and has gone on to implore Mugabe to "listen to the voice of the majority" in the ruling party and ignore the advice of Mafikizolos (Johnny-come-latelies) who his group says have hijacked the party and are leading the nonagenarian down the garden path.

Mutasa courted the wrath of his erstwhile Zanu-PF comrades when he recently signed a damning statement which was provocatively written in his former capacity as the ruling party's secretary for administration.

The no-holds-barred statement also called for the nullification of all "purported constitutional amendments drafted and rail-roaded immediately before this so-called congress", as well as the restoration of the "elective dignity of congress and the one-man one-vote principle as enunciated by our armed struggle and constitution".