Zanu-PF official says party should be revamped

MASVINGO - Retired Major Kudzai Mbudzi, who was recently readmitted back into ZANU-PF following a brief flirtation with Simba Makoni's Mavambo/Kusile/Dawn outfit, has said the former liberation movement should be revamped to curtail or face imminent collapse, Fingaz reported.

Mbudzi warned that ZANU-PF faced annihilation in the next elections against Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change (MDC-T) unless it undertook "systematic organisational re-alignment and renewal".

Mbudzi, who now calls himself a special ZANU-PF member, said there was an urgent need for the party to regenerate by deploying 'young Turks' into party structures as the old guard was now clueless in dealing with changing political dynamics.

"There is urgent need for organisational re-alignment and regeneration in ZANU-PF because how can someone who has been in the politburo of the party since 1977 move along with modern political trends? ZANU-PF needs to renew by replacing the old guard with young Turks because as things stand right now, who in ZANU-PF has got the political flexibility of a young person like, say (Nelson) Chamisa (MDC-T organising secretary)? There is nobody in ZANU-PF who can contest with a young person like Chamisa," said Mbudzi.

"It will be suicidal for ZANU-PF to go for elections in its present state before the party is re-aligned and regenerated. I do not see the party getting more than 20 percent of the vote. It will be suicidal to rush for elections and it bleeds me to see the party that I fought for to bring independence in 1980 slowly dying,'' said Mbudzi who was a ZANLA detachment commander during the war of liberation in the 1970s.

"ZANU-PF is a political time bomb at the moment and there is need for that bomb to be delicately handled. You do not need to crush a bomb but you handle it carefully and there is need for a national effort from all various political players in the country to support ZANU-PF so that it does not implode and plunge the country into total chaos and mayhem," he said, adding that there was also a need to tinker with ZANU-PF's present constitution to suit the needs of the 21st century.
Mbudzi also alleged that democracy in ZANU-PF ended at provincial level.

"From there onwards, there is a problem because leaders are now being appointed by an individual. So there is a problem because if a leader is appointed by an individual, he will be answerable to that individual and not the people. The problem in ZANU-PF is that that the party lacks a culture of contesting elections; no one is prepared to stand up and challenge President Mugabe for the top position in the party like what other parties in the region do and so it is surprising to hear that people are saying he (President Mugabe) must go yet there is no one who is willing to challenge and contest against him,'' charged Mbudzi.

He suggested that ZANU-PF should re-introduce the secretary general's post to reduce control of the party by its president, who is also its secretary.

"Why should all top posts be occupied by one person, why centralise all the powers in one person? Are there no other capable people or even young turks in ZANU-PF who can fit into some of those roles?'' he questioned.

Mbudzi said it was surprising that President Mugabe wanted to rush for fresh elections next year when he currently holds an open cheque to rule the country for quite some time.