FORMER Cabinet minister and Zanu PF founder member, Enos Nkala, says he prefers Vice-President Joice Mujuru to succeed President Robert Mugabe. Report by Dumisani Sibanda Bureau Chief
Addressing journalists at his home in the upmarket Woodlands suburbs in Bulawayo yesterday, Nkala said he had faith in Mujuru.
“If Mugabe were to go and I was asked who should take over, I would recommend her. She is very mature . . . thinks soundly and does not exhibit ambitions,” he said. “She is very mature.”
Nkala and Mujuru were both in Mugabe’s first Cabinet at independence in 1980. She is one of the longest-serving Cabinet ministers still alive. Mujuru and Emmerson Mnangagwa, who is the party’s secretary for legal affairs and also Defence minister, have been touted as being in the lead to succeed Mugabe.
However, Mugabe has warned party members against factionalism in the party, saying it only served to destroy the party.
Mujuru joined the liberation struggle when she was still a girl and is said to have been a fierce fighter under Zanla, the armed wing of Zanu PF, and her nemesis Mnangagwa also boasts of liberation war credentials.
Both Mujuru and Mnangagwa have denied leading factions in a bid to succeed Mugabe and have said there is no bad blood between them.
Nkala, who left Zanu PF after he was implicated in the Willowgate scandal in the 1980s, raised eyebrows last year when he met Mugabe at the Joshua Mqabuko International Airport.
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The issues they discussed were never made public, but speculation was rife that Nkala could have been retracing his footsteps to Zanu PF.
Last year, the maverick politician said Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai and his MDC-T would win next year’s elections if they were held in a free and fair environment.
