Zanu-PF to take legal action against party copycats

Zimbabwe's ruling party will take legal action to stop any splinter group using the name Zanu-PF, Information Minister Jonathan Moyo warned.

Rumours that ex-vice president Joice Mujuru may be about to head a breakaway faction of Zanu-PF, which will call itself Zanu People First are spreading.

News24 reported that Moyo tweeted on Tuesday that reports the party of long-time president Robert Mugabe had already split into two opposing factions were "pure nonsense".

But when asked whether his party would take legal action against any group using the name Zanu-PF, he tweeted: "Yes."

Mujuru, 59, was expelled from Zanu-PF last week, more than three months after she was sacked as vice president. She had previously vowed to remain a member of Zanu-PF despite losing her post.

The embattled politician, who is the widow of a former army commander, has been mostly silent since her expulsion, last emerging after Mugabe's 91st birthday party to accuse him of making "lewd" allegations against her.

Several of her high-profile supporters have also been expelled from Zanu-PF, including presidential affairs minister Didymus Mutasa. Mujuru's biggest champion, her late husband Solomon, was killed in a mysterious house-fire in 2011. She said then that she believed his death was no accident.

The official Herald newspaper, which is seen as the voice of Mugabe's government, said in an editorial at the weekend that political parties in Zimbabwe "are private clubs, able to admit who they like [and] expel who they like".