President Robert Mugabe flew to Equatorial Guinea on Wednesday for a two-day visit during which he would attend some obscure summit to do with Africa’s trade relations with some country called Turkey.
NewsDay Editorial
This is the fourth time he has flown out of the country since the infighting in the ruling party intensified with the coming onto the political scene of his wife, First Lady Grace.
Interestingly, during his absence in all instances, Vice-President Joice Mujuru has acted in place. This is despite the serious accusations that have been levelled against her by the President’s wife.
Since August when the First Lady was nominated to take over the leadership of the Zanu PF Women’s League at the elective party congress early next month, Grace has gone on a campaign to vilify Mujuru whom she is trying to push out of office by forcing her to resign in the face of the scurrilous allegations she has made against her.
Grace has accused Mujuru of very serious crimes including corruption, extortion, incompetence and laziness. She has said Mujuru’s decade in the esteemed office of Vice-President has been a waste as she has nothing to show of it in terms of personal achievement.
She has accused the VP of piggybacking on Mugabe. Outside government business, Grace has accused Mujuru of fanning factionalism in the ruling party.
She has also accused her of being the godmother of opposition politics, saying all parties in the opposition were formed under her tutelage. In all this, Grace has had ready support from the government-controlled public media.
- Chamisa under fire over US$120K donation
- Mavhunga puts DeMbare into Chibuku quarterfinals
- Pension funds bet on Cabora Bassa oilfields
- Councils defy govt fire tender directive
Keep Reading
Grace’s actions have engendered a lot of debate. Many have questioned what Mugabe himself thinks about his wife’s utterances. Despite his wife’s continued prodding, Mugabe has not fired Mujuru.
He also has not said whether he approves or not of his wife’s onslaught on his closest lieutenant. To many, it has become logical to conclude that his silence means consent.
But many contradictions have come to the fore in the fight that Grace has started against Mujuru which may point to a surprise ending to the whole saga. Interesting is the fact that for the first time in Zimbabwe’s independence history, we have the acting president of the republic opposed by a big number of government ministers who have the support of the public media.
Interesting too is that when Mujuru has been accused of the very serious crime of treason, and some of her close allies have been sidelined on the strength of those accusations, Mugabe still has enough trust in her to leave her holding the reins of power — including the command of the military — while he is out of the country.
These contradictions point to either that Mugabe has completely lost his marbles, or he is stagemanaging the whole charade in order to see each protagonist’s true colours. Indeed, in the past three months, the grain has separated from the chaff and the congress in two weeks’ time just might be the rain that will sweep away the latter.
