Mugabe plots Mujuru demise

As the political stock of former Vice President Joice Mujuru continues to grow, it has emerged that a panicking Zanu PF is escalating its plots to bring her down ahead of the country's eagerly-anticipated 2018 national elections.

Well-placed Zanu PF sources who spoke to the Daily News yesterday said among the deadly schemes that the ruling party had put in place was lining up shadowy groups in the UK, disguised as her supporters -  in a desperate bid to scupper her meetings when she visits London this week.

Mujuru is visiting the United Kingdom as part of her local and global charm offensive which includes addressing thousands of Zimbabweans domiciled in Britain.

The UK visit comes as the widow of the late liberation struggle icon, General Solomon Mujuru, has teamed up with other opposition leaders in their determined bid to end President Robert Mugabe's 36 years in power.

The Zanu PF insiders who spoke to the Daily News yesterday said some ruling party bigwigs were planning to organise demonstrations in London against Mujuru when she gets there.

"These protests in London will supposedly be led by pressure group Tajamuka/Sesjikile and other pro-democracy groups. Pamphlets and banners denouncing her have already been produced," one of the sources said.

Zimbabwe People First (ZPF) spokesperson Jealous Mawarire confirmed the plot to embarrass Mujuru in the UK, where she is due to speak at the prestigious Chatham House on Thursday.

"We are aware that Zanu PF, after Mugabe's self-professed embarrassment in New York, wants to play an equalisation game by stage-managing fake anti-Mujuru demonstrations in the UK.

"It is an exercise in futility which pre-empts the desperation and panic in Zanu PF over Mujuru's inexorable political rise to become the most plausible presidential candidate in 2018," Mawarire told the Daily News.

"We know #ThisFlag, Tajamuka, ROHR (Restoration of Human Rights) and other progressive movements are solidly behind People First and its leader Dr Mujuru, and will never sell their souls to this anti-Mujuru Zanu PF project.

"The good men and women of this country, whether at home or in the Diaspora understand Mugabe is the architect of their misery.

"What is evident from these desperate moves by Mugabe and his cronies is that his government is now living on borrowed time and no amount of these fake demonstrations will hinder our unstoppable march towards freedom come 2018," Mawarire added.

Tajamuka spokesperson Promise Mkwananzi also distanced his organisation from the protests and accused Zanu PF of trying to abuse the name of the pressure group through its funding of shadowy organisations.

"We will never demonstrate against another democratic force. What is clear is that Zanu PF is so desperate to the point of sponsoring groups to masquerade as Tajamuka just to divide pro-democracy groups," he said.

Zanu PF also stands accused of going into overdrive in its desperate bid to scupper the pending 2018 electoral deal between opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai and Mujuru.

In August, the ruling party launched a savage propaganda blitzkrieg - trashing Mujuru's role during Zimbabwe's liberation struggle, including making an assault on the political legacy of her late revered husband, Rex Mujuru.

Solomon, Zimbabwe's first black army commander, who was seen as a kingmaker within Zanu PF, and who is credited with playing a major role in catapulting Mugabe to the leadership of the ruling party in the mid 1970s, died in a mysterious fire at his Beatrice farmhouse, just outside Harare in August 2011.

The attacks on Mujuru's private life and Rex's political legacy came days after the ZPF leader had held a joint rally with Tsvangirai in Gweru, fuelling  long-held Zanu PF fears that the two would form a grand coalition to fight Mugabe in 2018.

Only two weeks ago, axe and knobkerrie-wielding ruling party mobs left for dead Mujuru's officials who included former diplomat and brigadier, Agrippah Mutambara, in barbaric attacks which heightened fears that Mugabe and Zanu PF would increasingly use terror to silence Zimbabwe's restless populace ahead of the 2018 national elections.

Yesterday, the MDC also said Mugabe was so desperate that he would do anything to try and derail the current momentum within the opposition parties.

"MDC supporters are very disciplined political cadres who appreciate that Joice Mujuru is not our political adversary. Our political adversary is Robert Mugabe and the Zanu PF regime that he fronts," said spokesperson Obert Gutu.

"It is quite possible that Zanu PF supporters and CIO agents are plotting this nefarious agenda of disrupting Mujuru's visit to the UK," he added.

The fearless leader of the National Vendors Union of Zimbabwe (Navuz), Sten Zvorwadza, who will also be travelling to the UK in the coming weeks, said "progressive" forces would not try to undo each other.

"There is a third hand at play. Zanu PF is eager to make sure that it sows seeds of division among political parties. Just as they did in the USA, they want to do it in the UK and divert attention to the crisis at hand," Zvorwadza told the Daily News.

During the annual United Nations General Assembly meetings in New York two weeks ago, Zanu PF allegedly hired thousands of impoverished African Americans to stage protests in support of Mugabe and the government.

The hired crowds neutralised protests which had been organised by Zimbabweans in the US, who included Mawarire and music icon Thomas Mapfumo.

Last Tuesday, violence rocked Harare as police fought running battles with supposed rioting vendors who were later identified as Zanu PF youths.

Zvorwadza said genuine street traders had "absolutely nothing to do" with the mayhem - fingering Zanu PF supporters as being behind the chaos.

Mugabe, the only leader Zimbabweans have known since the country gained its independence from Britain in April 1980, is battling to save his long political career as citizen unrest escalates over the ever-deteriorating quality of life locally, which they blame squarely on his misrule.

But the increasingly frail nonagenarian has not taken lightly to the challenge to his power, unleashing the country's security apparatus on the restive populace with devastating consequences - amid fears that the government may effect a State of Emergency to contain growing civil unrest.