Zanu PF plots war vets ouster
By Tatenda Dewa | Harare Bureau |
Ruling Zanu PF provincial representatives hastily convened a meeting at the party headquarters in Harare on Monday to plan the ouster of liberation war veterans who last week announced their disengagement with the long-ruling President Robert Mugabe, 92.
State media also recently flighted advertisements calling on veterans to converge at the party headquarters on Tuesday to march in support of President Robert Mugabe.
The veterans gathered in Harare last Thursday and, through a communique, said they would no longer campaign for Zanu PF and Mugabe, who they accused of being a dictator who had run down the economy.
The war veterans are backing Emmerson Mnangagwa to take over from Mugabe who they want to go immediately, even though the vice president distanced himself from them at the weekend.
The Zanu PF Midlands deputy provincial chairperson, Daniel Mackenzie Ncube, told journalists after the Monday meeting that the war vets leadership must be dismissed from the party.
“We call upon the party to immediately take decisive action against those implicated in the authoring and distribution of the communiqué, including those who sponsored the gathering with financial and other resources,” he said.
The meeting was attended by party bigwigs linked to a rival faction opposed to Mnangagwa’s takeover, among them national commissar and Local Government minister, Saviour Kasukuwere, Eunice Sandi-Moyo from the women’s wing and youth leader Kudzai Chipanga.
“We condemn in the strongest of terms the reckless statement including those who authored this treasonous document.
“Our concern is with the substance and form of the statement, which impugns the person and Office of the President of the Republic of Zimbabwe and Commander-in-Chief of the Zimbabwe Defence Forces and patron of the war veterans,” said Ncube.
The war vets have, however insisted that they do not need party cards to belong to Zanu PF and vowed their loyalty to expelled leader, Christopher Mutsvangwa.
Kasukuwere has already threatened a takeover of farms belonging to the rebellious veterans who were used as foot soldiers during the violent and unplanned fast track land redistribution programme that started in 2000 and displaced some 6,000 commercial white farmers. Nehanda Radio
