Mugabe blasts Herald for dividing Zanu PF

HARARE – President Robert Mugabe used a Zanu PF politburo meeting on Wednesday to express his displeasure with the way the state media particularly The Herald newspaper is being used to sow divisions within the ruling party.

After the closed door meeting Zanu PF spokesperson Rugare Gumbo told journalists that Mugabe felt that the coverage in the media, “particularly The Herald” was “making destructive statements about the party. He (Mugabe) felt that the media must inform on issues and not on personalities,” Gumbo said.

But in an editorial published on Thursday, The Herald, now a voice of the Mnangagwa faction in Zanu PF, accused Gumbo of putting his own words into Mugabe’s mouth.

“We take great exception to statements made by Zanu PF national spokesperson Rugare Gumbo who passed his own now well-known personal sentiments on The Herald as the Zanu PF position, and went to the extent of seeking to put words into President Mugabe’s mouth,” the paper said.

“We checked with other Politburo members who attended the meeting and found out that the President expressed concern over some sections of the media that ran a story falsely claiming that his daughter, Mrs Bona Chikore, had grabbed a farm in Goromonzi.

“Interestingly, Cde Gumbo did not share this important detail with the media. The President did not mention The Herald by name. How the media is then crystallised to The Herald, only Cde Gumbo knows.

“While we are flattered that the Zanu PF spokesperson considers us the be all and end all of the media, we are hardly amused when he passes his personal sentiments as the party or President’s position.

“When Cde Gumbo wears the party hat, we expect him to articulate the party position, not his personal sentiments in pursuit of his own interests.”

Meanwhile Mugabe threatened to deal with party leaders who fight in public and tarnish the Zanu PF name. But events this year show that the 90-year-old president’s bark is now worse than his bite.

In June this year President Mugabe branded Information Minister Jonathan Moyo a “devil incarnate” while accusing him of appointing editors of state-owned newspapers who were sympathetic to the opposition.

Mugabe accused Moyo of using the government-controlled newspapers to sow divisions with the ruling Zanu PF party.

Mugabe also complained that Zanu PF had been infiltrated by “weevils” (a crop pest) bent on destroying the party from within.

The Zanu PF secretary for administration Didymus Mutasa later urged party youths in Mutare to use gamatox (a lethal pesticide) to deal with the alleged “weevils”.

Despite Mugabe’s public criticism of Moyo he has strangely kept him on as Information Minister leading some to believe the 90 year old might be gradually losing control of both the party and government and caving in to Zanu PF factional interests.