Opinion / Columnist
War vets up the stakes by demanding Mugabe fire 8 key G40 leaders
22 Mar 2016 at 18:44hrs | Views
Last week Mugabe agreed to meet the war vets who have found themselves being kicked round like a football in Zanu PF's factious factional wars. The war vets have set Mugabe an impossible task ahead of the meeting; they want him to fire VP Phelekezela Mphoko and seven other top G40 faction leaders including Mugabe's pompous nephew Minister Patrick Zhuwao!
"The war veterans are the owners of Zanu PF. Zanu PF cannot afford to ignore its forces in as much as Zanu and Zapu could never have ignored Zipra and Zanla," said Zimbabwe National Liberation War Veterans' Association (ZNLWVA) spokesperson Douglas Mahiya.
"We are the foundation of the party and the party must take what we say very seriously. The vote of no-confidence has been passed and must be executed, that is what we expect."
Ever since the demise of Joice Mujuru and her supporters when Grace Mugabe and her G40 faction turned their attention on Mnangagwa and his faction the dog-eat-dog fight has been fierce but never has the stakes been this high! Ever since Mugabe unleashed the Police with tear-gas and water cannon on the war vets led by then Minister Chris Mutsvangwa, a known Mnangagwa loyalist, the war vets have been on a war footing, itching for a fight!
Robert Mugabe now has a hell of fight in his hands; his own continued rule is at stake here!
Zanu PF is imploding because the party has become so autocratic it has moved from a one-party dictatorship to a one-man dictatorship and, as if that was not bad enough, the one-man dictator has become nothing more than a ventriloquist dummy in his very ambitious wife's hands. Ever since Grace Mugabe burst on the political stage in August 2014, she has made no secret that she wanted to succeed her husband as president and she will be telling what to do to ensure her dream comes true.
Grace told her husband to "baby dumped" Joice Mujuru and her supporters in 2014 and he did. With Mujuru out of the way Grace and her newly formed G40 faction turned their attention on the next threat to her presidential ambition, Emmerson Mnangagwa his allies. Sadly after a year and half of hurrying and harassing Mnangagwa and his allies, the G40 faction has still remained too weak and feeble to deliver a knockout punch on their rivalry faction.
The Mnangagwa faction, unlike the Mujuru faction before it, has been able to fight back again and again. The war vet's vote of no confidence against VP Mphoko and demand for seven senior G40 leaders to be fired from the party is without the Mnangagwa faction's cleanest and heaviest direct body blow on G40 and indirect blow on Grace and Mugabe himself. Depending how Mugabe hands this, it may well prove to be the KO punch for G40, Grace and Mugabe himself!
Grace Mugabe has surprised many people at how close she has come to seizing the presidency in the short period of two years. Her meteoric rise through the ranks was because she came rid-ing the dragon, Robert Mugabe, whom every in Zanu PF feared and did not dare question why everyone else had to take the torturous high road to office whilst she did not.
Grace has come close to inheriting the crown but she will never wear it. She has a loud and foul mouth but no brain hence the reason why she has failed to attract any followers in her G40 faction. Grace's Achilles' heel was that she failed to realise that people feared the dragon she was riding but had nothing but contempt for the one riding it.
Indeed, when the people realized it was her telling Mugabe what to do they even became emboldened by their fury. The nation will never forget Jabulani Sibanda's contemptuous dismissal of Grace's attempts to launch her political career as a "bedroom coup". And now the war vets are publicly slapping Mugabe in the face with this unprecedented demand for him to destroy his wife's G40 faction!
If Mugabe was to fire Mphoko and the other G40 members that would constitute the greatest political climb down of his political career and, worse still, he will not have a single ally left in the party and government. He will be left with no choice but to resign!
On the other hand the war vets will lose face and influence if Mugabe was to defy their demands and refuse to fire any of the G40 leaders; it will be said Mugabe mollified the war vets with a piece of meat just as he did with the Zanu PF Youth and Women's League members before their respective 2014 conference!
"The war veterans are the owners of Zanu PF. Zanu PF cannot afford to ignore its forces in as much as Zanu and Zapu could never have ignored Zipra and Zanla," said Zimbabwe National Liberation War Veterans' Association (ZNLWVA) spokesperson Douglas Mahiya.
"We are the foundation of the party and the party must take what we say very seriously. The vote of no-confidence has been passed and must be executed, that is what we expect."
Ever since the demise of Joice Mujuru and her supporters when Grace Mugabe and her G40 faction turned their attention on Mnangagwa and his faction the dog-eat-dog fight has been fierce but never has the stakes been this high! Ever since Mugabe unleashed the Police with tear-gas and water cannon on the war vets led by then Minister Chris Mutsvangwa, a known Mnangagwa loyalist, the war vets have been on a war footing, itching for a fight!
Robert Mugabe now has a hell of fight in his hands; his own continued rule is at stake here!
Zanu PF is imploding because the party has become so autocratic it has moved from a one-party dictatorship to a one-man dictatorship and, as if that was not bad enough, the one-man dictator has become nothing more than a ventriloquist dummy in his very ambitious wife's hands. Ever since Grace Mugabe burst on the political stage in August 2014, she has made no secret that she wanted to succeed her husband as president and she will be telling what to do to ensure her dream comes true.
Grace told her husband to "baby dumped" Joice Mujuru and her supporters in 2014 and he did. With Mujuru out of the way Grace and her newly formed G40 faction turned their attention on the next threat to her presidential ambition, Emmerson Mnangagwa his allies. Sadly after a year and half of hurrying and harassing Mnangagwa and his allies, the G40 faction has still remained too weak and feeble to deliver a knockout punch on their rivalry faction.
The Mnangagwa faction, unlike the Mujuru faction before it, has been able to fight back again and again. The war vet's vote of no confidence against VP Mphoko and demand for seven senior G40 leaders to be fired from the party is without the Mnangagwa faction's cleanest and heaviest direct body blow on G40 and indirect blow on Grace and Mugabe himself. Depending how Mugabe hands this, it may well prove to be the KO punch for G40, Grace and Mugabe himself!
Grace Mugabe has surprised many people at how close she has come to seizing the presidency in the short period of two years. Her meteoric rise through the ranks was because she came rid-ing the dragon, Robert Mugabe, whom every in Zanu PF feared and did not dare question why everyone else had to take the torturous high road to office whilst she did not.
Grace has come close to inheriting the crown but she will never wear it. She has a loud and foul mouth but no brain hence the reason why she has failed to attract any followers in her G40 faction. Grace's Achilles' heel was that she failed to realise that people feared the dragon she was riding but had nothing but contempt for the one riding it.
Indeed, when the people realized it was her telling Mugabe what to do they even became emboldened by their fury. The nation will never forget Jabulani Sibanda's contemptuous dismissal of Grace's attempts to launch her political career as a "bedroom coup". And now the war vets are publicly slapping Mugabe in the face with this unprecedented demand for him to destroy his wife's G40 faction!
If Mugabe was to fire Mphoko and the other G40 members that would constitute the greatest political climb down of his political career and, worse still, he will not have a single ally left in the party and government. He will be left with no choice but to resign!
On the other hand the war vets will lose face and influence if Mugabe was to defy their demands and refuse to fire any of the G40 leaders; it will be said Mugabe mollified the war vets with a piece of meat just as he did with the Zanu PF Youth and Women's League members before their respective 2014 conference!
Source - Wilbert Mukori
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