PRESIDENT Robert Mugabe yesterday ordered party officials pushing for his ouster and those allegedly using dirty tricks to land top posts to stop their manoeuvres until the party has gone to congress in December.
MOSES MATENGA STAFF REPORTER
Addressing guests attending a luncheon hosted by Local Government minister Ignatius Chombo after the official opening of the Second Session of the Eighth Parliament, Mugabe said all “this nonsense” will come to an end at the party’s elective December congress.
Mugabe lashed out at all faction fighters in his party saying they should focus energy on promoting the party’s economic blueprint, Zimbabwe Agenda for Sustainable Socio-Economic Transformation (ZimAsset).
“In my party, people want positions, they want to push senior people out,” he said, adding that his post was not yet up for grabs.
“The same is happening in the MDC. We had it intact in the inclusive government, now we have, I don’t know, how many pieces? MDC that, MDC this, something called renewal, renewing what? Renewing the MDC?” he said.
“If you are in a position, use the position you have effectively, not wanting to push others out. It’s wasting our time, we should be in the field working and as we go to congress, we are going to see how we can be effective in our practical programmes, not to see who you can push out,” he said.
He said people should appreciate positions given to them and stop abusing those positions to settle personal scores.
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“We are going to congress and we must stop all that nonsense,” Mugabe fumed.
“People say Mugabe is old, I came along with the party to be here, fighting whites, jails and the fighters only for a young person to say that. I know when the time comes I tell you, but for now . . .” he said.
“Differences we have in political parties are political differences, we, us Zimbabweans, belong to each other. I can’t reject a man who belongs to MDC or, what is that 99 thing?” he said in apparent reference to MDC99 formerly led by Job Sikhala, who has rejoined the MDC-T.
The veteran leader said the only problem preventing his party from working with the MDC-T was failure by former Premier Morgan Tsvangirai to accept that they had lost the July 31 2013 election.
Mugabe also lashed out at what he called inept ministers and urged them to concentrate on their core business instead of spending most of their energy fuelling factionalism in the ruling party.
The Zanu PF leader’s tongue-lashing left many wondering who it was directed at, raising speculation that it was calculated to confuse the factions fighting to succeed him.
Analysts say during his more than three decades in power, Mugabe has used the same trump card to neutralise his challengers by playing off Zanu PF factions against each other. This, they say, could possibly explain why he had unleashed his wife Grace into frontline politics to rock the boat.
The Zanu PF succession fights went into overdrive early this month when Grace attacked Vice-President Joice Mujuru and accused her of plotting to oust her husband at the party congress in December.
Mujuru, Mugabe’s deputy both in the party and government for the last 10 years, has been a frontrunner to succeed Mugabe but faces a stiff challenge from Justice minister Emmerson Mnangagwa.
Mujuru, a battle-hardened veteran of the 1970s liberation war, has been Mugabe’s deputy since 2004, but now appears to be in a precarious position ahead of the congress.
The political infighting comes against a backdrop of economic uncertainty, with impoverished Zimbabwe starved of foreign investment and external funding.
