HARARE — Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe decried “jostling” for power within his governing Zanu (PF) party yesterday as he deepened a purge of potential successors.
“Unprecedented jostling has been going on,” the 90-year-old leader told war veterans, warning, “that’s what destroys organisations,” as the party met to elect its leaders.
The key elective congress — to be attended by about 12,000 delegates — is expected to endorse Mr Mugabe as party chief and his wife Grace as women’s league boss. But several other major players are unlikely to retain their posts after a purge in recent weeks targeting Vice-President Joice Mujuru and her allies.
Mr Mugabe hit out at Ms Mujuru, although not by name, for seeking power. “We are experiencing it for the first time in Zanu (PF) and for that matter it’s a woman who is saying I want to take over that seat,” he said.
“We know the infiltrations that has been going on. They were saying, ‘We will work with the (opposition) MDC (Movement for Democratic Change), Britain and America.’ That simplistic thinking. You can’t trust the white man.”
The party meets behind closed doors until Wednesday with the congress moving into open session from Thursday until Saturday. But with the governing party set to approve amendments to its constitution to allow Mr Mugabe to personally appoint his deputies, business was already as good as done, said analyst Rushweat Mukundu of the Zimbabwe Democracy Institute. “If there is going to be any competition, it will be among bootlickers fighting to earn the favour of the president.”
One of the victims of the purge, suspended party spokesman Rugare Gumbo, said the congress was a sham. “If Mugabe is given the power to appoint, then it ceases to be an elective congress.
“The whole congress is a nonevent because the constitution has been manipulated and violated. So where is democracy? It is not a congress at all. It is a charade.”
Long a front-runner to succeed Mr Mugabe, Ms Mujuru’s future now hangs in the balance after she failed to make it into the party’s central committee.
Zanu (PF) rejected Ms Mujuru’s election papers last week after Grace Mugabe accused her of corruption and fomenting factionalism within the party. AFP
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