By Fungi Kwaramba
HARARE – Warring Zanu PF factions are openly abusing President Robert Mugabe’s wife Grace to settle political scores ahead of the decisive December congress, national chairman Simon Khaya Moyo heard yesterday.
A meeting of provincial chairpersons at the Zanu PF headquarters resolved to put a lid on the rampant abuse of the First Lady’s name.
Khaya-Moyo presided over the meeting along with the national political commissar Webster Shamu.
Khaya-Moyo reportedly read the riot act, fuming at “some power hungry elements” seeking to discredit rival factions by roping in the name of Mugabe’s influential wife.
He said in a statement after the meeting: “This (Zanu PF) is not a media party and its operations cannot go through the media.
“I must warn the party leadership at every level not to use the media to abuse the First Lady’s name for whatever reason. The first family must be respected at all times.”
Since her entry into mainstream politics after being nominated to be the Women’s League secretary, Mugabe’s wife has hogged the limelight, with feuding party officials concocting sensational tales which cast their opponents in bad light and placing them at loggerheads with the first family.
Torn between two factions, one reportedly led by vice President Joice Mujuru and the other by powerful Justice minister Emerson Mnangagwa, Zanu PF has been weakened by unprecedented infighting that has played out in the media in recent days.
Chairpersons perceived to be loyal to Mujuru have been the biggest casualties of a seemingly calculated smear campaign. They have been cast as opposed to Grace’s rise.
Zanu PF Harare province early this week frantically tried to quell speculation that the provincial chairperson Amos Midzi and some top provincial officials were opposed to Grace’s spectacular rise in politics.
To deflect the scandal, the province offered a central committee post to Grace. There were reports that Harare had rejected her and wanted her to to go Mashonaland West, pointedly Zvimba, Mugabe’s rural home.
Apparently, the argument that Midzi alongside politburo member Tendai Savanhu, were against Grace was peddled by frustrated party officials with an axe to grind with the duo, officials said.
Across the country, some party officials have been suspended and in their defence, claim they are being purged because they support Grace.
A source in the ruling party said it would be suicidal for anyone to openly oppose Grace’s political ascendancy.
“That will be taking the (minister of Energy and Power Development Dzikamai) Mavhaire stance that Mugabe should go. We all know what happened to Mavhaire when he said that,” said a source.
Mavhaire courted the ire of Mugabe in the late 1990s when he infamously declared that Mugabe had to go. After making the statement, he sank into political oblivion and was only
extricated last year by the 90-year-old Zanu PF leader from the jaws of near-destitution.
Although the party position is that the provincial chairpersons meeting was an ordinary conclave, sources said it was “heated and tense.”
A senior Zanu PF official who attended the meeting told the Daily News that an angry Khaya Moyo told the provincial chairpersons to desist from handling “sensitive party information through the media.”
The chairpersons were told yesterday to deal mercilessly with those flouting the party’s rules.
“Provincial chairpersons were told to take a firm line and discipline people like (deputy Foreign Affairs minister Christopher) Mutsvangwa who have said ill of their seniors in the press,” said the source.
In a shocking and unprecedented move, Mutsvangwa recently attacked senior party officials including Mujuru, casting aspersions on her liberation war credentials. Daily News
