Zanu-PF Politburo member and Energy Minister Dzikamai Mavhaire has called for an end to jockeying for positions ahead of the ruling party’s December 2014 elective congress, saying there were no vacancies in the Presidium.
Mavhaire, who is secretary for production and labour and Energy and Power Development Minister, told Zanu-PF youths on Friday that President Mugabe was the party’s undisputed leader.
Addressing a Zanu-PF Youth League inter-district conference, Mavhaire warned party cadres against fanning factionalism.
“I simply just want to urge our party cadres, including the youths, that this is not the time to fight for leadership positions in Zanu-PF because there are no vacancies,” he said. “It’s is very clear that President Mugabe is the leader of the party and there is no vacancy there at the moment.
“The party has a clear line which shows the leadership and so why should we waste our time fighting for posts that are not vacant?
“It is very clear that Vice President Joice Mujuru comes after the President and then we have our national chairman Cde Simon Khaya Moyo and (secretary for administration) Cde Didymus Mutasa. We should learn to respect our leadership.”
Mavhaire said history was littered with examples of what happened when the party was divided along factional lines.
“We should discard factionalism and infighting and work together as a united party fully behind our leadership,” he said.
“History has taught us that unity is the cornerstone of success.”
Mavhaire said independence could have been attained much earlier had it not been for divisions between the liberation movements, Zanla and Zipra.
In the early 1990s Mavhaire was suspended from ZANU-PF for his famous remarks that “President Mugabe must go.”
This saw him relegated to the political dustbins and reduced to a vendor in Masvingo where he was selling oranges at Mucheke Bus terminus with a ramshackle vehicle that often needed a push to start.
But several years in the political wilderness have seen Mavhaire now singing a different tune. It helps that he has bounced back into Mugabe’s cabinet but not many could have expected him to join the bootlicking bandwagon so easily.
