Don’t fan factionalism, Mutasa tells State media

By Fungi Kwaramba

HARARE – Zanu PF secretary for administration, Didymus Mutasa, has broken his recent silence regarding Zanu PF’s worsening factional and succession wars, imploring State media to desist from fomenting factionalism within the party.

Speaking in an interview with the Daily News on Tuesday, Mutasa — who has been a close confidant of President Robert Mugabe for decades — said Zanu PF’s factional wars now needed to be contained ahead of the party’s crucial elective congress scheduled for early December.

Mutasa’s comments come in the wake of the vicious assault over the past few months on Vice President Joice Mujuru in State media. The Presidential Affairs minister is seen as a key ally of the beleaguered VP.

Mutasa said it was now an open secret that the Zimpapers stable, that includes The Herald, The Sunday Mail and The Chronicle, had an agenda against Mujuru.

“Newspapers that are attacking the vice president are offside. Kana mukuru akanyangadza ndimi munotomufukidza. Inga Bhaibheri wani rinotaura kudaro. Mukaona asina kupfeka musakwichidzira asi kutomufukidza.

“Kana Herald richituka vakuru vanhu havacharitenge (If an elder does wrong you do not laugh at him but take him aside and privately correct him. You should not fan factionalism. Because The Herald is attacking party leaders people have stopped reading it,” Mutasa said.

Meanwhile, Zanu PF spokesperson Rugare Gumbo, who is also accused of siding with Mujuru in the raging succession battle, has also come under a barrage of criticism in State media over the past few days — amid fears that the party’s factional fights could turn deadly as rivals rent mobs to discredit each other ahead of its elective congress in December.

All this is happening amid apparent moves by the faction loyal to Justice Minister Emmerson Mnangagwa to unseat all party provincial chairpersons perceived to be sympathetic to Mujuru.

During her controversial “Meet the People” rallies, Mugabe’s wife Grace sensationally claimed that Mujuru was corrupt and inept, and tacitly endorsed Mnangagwa as “an honourable man”, urging her 90-year-old husband to dump the widowed vice president.

Asked to comment on the role that some senior party members are playing, either from behind the scenes or publicly as is the case with Christopher Mutsvangwa, in the infighting, Mutasa said yesterday that all those who were in top leadership positions should work to unite the party, not destroy it.

Mutsvangwa has torn into both Mujuru and Gumbo, questioning their liberation war credentials and exploits.

“What they are doing is bad. They should stop it. Zvakaipa zvekushandisa mapepa.” (It’s wrong to use newspapers to divide the party) he said. Daily News