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NewsDay

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We won’t step down — Zapu leaders

Politics
ZAPU leaders who received a vote-of-no-confidence from 11 Bulawayo districts have dismissed the move as null and void.

ZAPU leaders who received a vote-of-no-confidence from 11 Bulawayo districts have dismissed the move as null and void, vowing they were still in charge of affairs in the province.

Report by Silas Nkala

The refusal by the leaders to leave office comes after a meeting convened to replace them through an election at Stanley Hall on Saturday flopped.

The elections were postponed to a later date after it emerged that the recalled members were refusing to step down. On September 30, 11 out of 12 Zapu Bulawayo districts passed a vote-of-no-confidence in the Bulawayo provincial executive, provincial council of elders and the national people’s council (NPC) at a meeting held at Amakhosi in Makokoba.

Only party president Dumiso Dabengwa, provincial administrator Ndumiso Mangena and the national executive were spared the axe.

“We do not recognise the current provincial executive, provincial council of elders and NPC,” said a district member. “We are tired of having leaders imposed on us. The administrator (Mangena) must go and tell the leaders that we want those people out of office and we need elections urgently.” The NPC also fired former Bulawayo chairman Ray Ncube on October 1, accusing him of unprocedurally writing a letter to Dabengwa and wanting to form a parallel party.

It replaced him with Memorial Malambani Dube.

NPC chairman Isaac Mabuka said the Bulawayo districts executive members supported the current NPC and its decision to appoint Malambani Dube as acting chairman.

“What these people are doing is illegal according to our party constitution,” he said.

“We cannot have a province dissolving itself and conducting elections on its own.”

On the expulsion of Ncube, Mabuka said the NPC had a right to expel any member for misconduct.

He said the NPC would not allow members to form parallel structures and its decision to fire Ncube was procedural.