By Andrew Kunambura
In an unprecedented move, President Robert Mugabe on Saturday revealed hitherto unknown goings-on in Zanu PF — telling thousands of party supporters who gathered in Bindura some of his party’s secrets which included Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s latest dossier he wants to use against Cabinet minister Jonathan Moyo in the politburo anytime soon.
This would be in response to Moyo’s presentation to the politburo in July where he accused Mnangagwa of State capture to bolster his reported bid to succeed the nonagenarian.
Mugabe revealed how Moyo had told that politburo meeting of an alleged confrontation between Mnangagwa and former broadcaster Godfrey Majonga over a woman, which allegedly ended with Majonga jumping from a high rise apartment in Harare — resulting in him being disabled for life.
“Hameno kanazvirizvo (we don’t know if this is true). Mnangagwa denies it. He says he doesn’t know any of it. He (Moyo) made that claim among others,” Mugabe told the supporters.
The tired looking 93-year-old told his supporters that Mnangagwa was ready to “expose” some of Moyo’s alleged misdeeds, and that the VP had, in this regard, already prepared a massive 85-page dossier which he would present to the politburo once he had fully recovered from his current illness.
“Mnangagwa said fine ‘I will reply him.’ He told me the other day that he has some 85 pages of reply. But because of the state of his health, he can only stand and talk, perhaps not more than 15 minutes or so.
“But when he gets fit he will reply him. These are other issues that cause us discomfort in the party — personal differences, attacks and ambitions that we want to end,” said Mugabe.
Mnangagwa has been at the receiving end of savage attacks by Moyo in the on-going Zanu PF succession wars, which last month took an ominous turn when Mugabe’s deputy fell sick during an interface rally in Gwanda which his backers said was a poison attack by his G40 rivals.
Mnangagwa was later airlifted to South Africa where he had emergency surgery.
The alleged poisoning saga has worsened the infighting in the former liberation movement with Mugabe coming out publicly to warn his senior officials over allegations that Mnangagwa had been poisoned by ice cream from his dairy company.
On Saturday, Mugabe’s wife, Grace, said the allegations were calculated to destroy the first family’s business.
Mnangagwa has since issued a statement denying that his illness was caused by ice cream from the first family’s Gushungo Dairies.
Mugabe on Saturday revisited the 2004 incident in which Moyo was accused of plotting with Mnangagwa to catapult the Midlands godfather to the presidium.
Analysts said Mugabe’s mentioning of the issue showed that neither had he forgotten about the incident nor forgiven the actors involved in it.
Mugabe stunned his audience in Bindura by exposing the fact that Moyo had never forgiven Mnangagwa for leaving him hanging high and dry in the aftermath of the 2004 Tsholotsho meeting which is said to have been called to plot Mugabe’s ouster and the Midlands godfather’s ascendancy to the leadership of the ruling party.
In what was later described as an attempted palace coup, Moyo and the chairmen of six provinces gathered at Dinyane Secondary School then, where they allegedly intended to plot Mnangagwa’s rise to become Mugabe’s deputy, at the expense of former vice president Joice Mujuru.
“Vakasiyana panyaya yeTsholotsho (Moyo and Mnangagwa fell out over Tsholotsho). Vakaita Tsholotsho pamwechete (They planned the Tsholotsho meeting together). Vaiva naGushungo arikubhora uyo (They were together with Philip Chiyangwa).
“They connived to meet with all chairpersons at Chiyangwa’s home in Zvimba on the basis that Mugabe must go and Mnangagwa must take over.
“Mnangagwa was not there but the likes of Chiyangwa and Jonathan Moyo were there. They then decided to have a final meeting in Tsholotsho but we discovered it and then asked who was at Tsholotsho.
“The suspensions followed … Jonathan was expelled. He says it’s at that point that he differed with Mnangagwa because he refused to come to their aid,” Mugabe told his supporters.
“We then asked him (Moyo) not to stand as an independent Parliamentary candidate for Tsholotsho in the 2005 parliamentary elections, but he went ahead and won (as an independent).
“He then later came back pleading to be readmitted into the party saying it was cold outside Zanu PF. And when he came back, he was full of vengeance and then in one of our politburo meetings, he swore that he would never ever support Mnangagwa,” Mugabe revealed.
Mugabe also laid bare the problems in Masvingo and Midlands provinces, but saying contrary to his wife’s assertions that factionalism was found only in those two provinces, it was rampant across the country.
“The problems in Masvingo are also purely about personal differences. I was called to address them by MPs there who were not happy with the conduct of (the late Masvingo Provincial Affairs minister Shuvai) Mahofa and Josiah Hungwe, whom they wanted me to remove from office.
“I was even in the process of reshuffling Cabinet to address that. In Midlands there were also personal differences between (the late vice president) vaMuzenda who said he was leaving the province to Masvingo as he was being victimised by (the late former Cabinet minister Byron) Hove, Mnangagwa and others. In Masvingo, he also came up against (the late former Cabinet minister Eddison) Zvobgo.
“That one (Zvobgo) was a real tribalist who was not even ashamed of it. We will address the problems in Masvingo as the party leadership, but those in Midlands will solve their own problems,” Mugabe said.
Meanwhile, Grace continued to aim her guns at Mnangagwa and his allies, warning the embattled VP that he could be discarded the way Joice Mujuru had been dealt with in Zanu PF.
She also claimed that there was no faction called G40, but only a party faction supporting Mnangagwa.
“I don’t know of G40, but I know Lacoste exists,” she said. Daily News
