Fired Zanu PF Marondera West MP Tracy Mutinhiri yesterday opened up on what she claimed were a litany of attempts on her life by her enemies in the former ruling party, who accused her of being too close to MDC-T leader, Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai.
In an interview with NewsDay, Mutinhiri, who doubles as Labour and Social Welfare deputy minister cited “at least three occasions” when she could have been killed, only to be saved by either quick reaction or tip-offs from sympathisers.
“The first attempt was July this year when they planned to stage an accident and eliminate me on my way from our Marondera farm. However, someone privy to the plot phoned me and advised me to change route. From what I gather, they intended to dump my body in Wenimbe Dam,” said Mutinhiri.
She added the second instance was at her salon at Sam Levy’s Village in Borrowdale, Harare.
“Two unknown men visited me at my salon and waited at my car. Luckily, they mistook my female employee for me and tried to bundle her into the boot of the car. On realising that it wasn’t me, they set her free. I had to be accompanied by my male barbers, which is how I survived,” she said.
Mutinhiri alleges the third attempt was at Marondera Hotel where another sympathiser advised her they intended to use a lethal spray to kill her, but abandoned the plot on realising she had become aware of it.
Responding to her dismissal from Zanu PF, Mutinhiri said she hoped attempts on her life would now come to an end.
“It is my wish and hope that I can now move on with my life without any harassment or hounding and enjoy my human rights and democratic rights as a free citizen of Zimbabwe,” she wrote to Zanu PF secretary for administration Didymus Mutasa.
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The embattled MP, now set to lose both her Parliamentary and government positions, said she did not report all the three attempts because she felt they were too “political” and was doubtful they would be investigated.
Asked to comment on Mutinhiri’s allegations, Zanu PF spokesperson Rugare Gumbo said he had no idea what she was was talking about.
“I don’t know anything about it. I wouldn’t know what’s happening in her ward or constituency. Why don’t you ask the police?” he said.
Last week, Zanu PF Politiburo upheld a guilty verdict by the party’s Mashonaland East province and expelled Mutinhiri from the party.
“. . . the national disciplinary committee (has) upheld the guilty verdict passed by the Mashonaland East Provincial disciplinary committee and amended the sentence to that of expulsion,” reads the letter signed by Mutasa which NewsDay is in possession of.
Her allegations ranged from not chanting party slogans at certain gatherings to being part of Prime Minister Tsvangirai’s entourage when he visited Manicaland Province recently.
Mysterious deaths involving top politicians are not new in Zimbabwe. Just before independence in 1980 liberation war commander Josiah Tongogara died following a car crash which many described as questionable.
Years later, the likes of outspoken parliamentarians Sydney Malunga, Zororo Duri, William Ndangana and ministers Christopher Ushewokunze and Elliot Manyika, also perished in seemingly mysterious accidents.
