FRESH details on how beleaguered Vice-President Joice Mujuru and her cabal allegedly tried to oust President Robert Mugabe were yesterday revealed with Speaker of Parliament Jacob Mudenda saying the plot started in 2009.
MOSES MATENGA STAFF REPORTER
The details emerged as Mugabe is today expected to replace Mujuru by appointing new members of the Presidium.
Justice minister Emmerson Mnangagwa is tipped to replace Mujuru.
Mudenda, who presented the state of the party report in the absence of national secretary for administration Didymus Mutasa, who together with Mujuru snubbed the Congress, alleged that the VP usurped power from the centre years back.
Mudenda said until the coming in of First Lady Grace Mugabe to expose the rot in the party, Zanu PF had been hijacked by members funded by the United States and Europe to remove Mugabe from power.
He said Mujuru’s camp manipulated structures to create a base for her, with Mutasa losing focus on his main duties and working as second-in-command to Mujuru in their “treacherous” actions.
Mudenda, however, added that those who showed remorse and apologised would be pardoned.
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“Sadly, however, towards the end of this review period, particularly in the year leading to this 6th national people’s congress, the party unearthed and thwarted a plot which had external underpinnings, to remove the President and first secretary of the party unconstitutionally, before or during the congress,” Mudenda said.
“This plot involved some among us, under the leadership of then Vice-President Joice Teurai Ropa Mujuru and her cabal of senior politburo members, who had been enticed by the Americans and some Europeans with promises that they would pour billions of dollars into Zimbabwe once they succeeded in allying with the opposition formations to oust Zanu PF and its iconic President and first secretary from power.”
Mudenda said the same people mentioned in the whistleblower website Wikileaks as hobnobbing with the “enemy” were the same people who were plotting dubious means of ousting Mugabe.
“They instead deepened their plotting, captured party and State structures through imposition, vote-buying, patronage, corruption and all sorts of treacherous intrigue to appoint where they felt sufficiently ready to oust the President, even threatening to assassinate him,” he alleged.
Mudenda alleged the plot to remove Mugabe by the Mujuru camp started with the usurping of power from the centre, rigging and manipulating internal elective processes from the national level down to the cell or village and filling them with people either “bought with money” or “indoctrinated” to support their cause.
“They orchestrated sham primary elections ahead of the 2013 harmonised polls resulting in their domination of both the House of Assembly and the Senate and consequently, Cabinet,” Mudenda said.
He alleged the Mujuru camp imposed their loyalists in crucial positions in the structures.
Mudenda said due to the massive scheming by the Mujuru camp, “the party became unco-ordinated, with attendant policy incoherence, as the secretary for administration ensconced himself as Vice-President Mujuru’s second-in-command in the faction. A lot of other ills followed, creating a chronic state of near-paralysis in the party.
“Thanks to the revelations made by the First Lady Amai Doctor Grace Mugabe, a whirlwind was unleashed which swept away the conspirators. The challenge that the party faces now, going forward from this congress, is to orient all its organs, members and functionaries in government back to its ideology and policies.”
Mudenda also said that poor funding of party projects could also have fuelled factionalism.
“The failure of the party to fund its programmes sufficiently from the centre talks very strongly of the need for the party to urgently address this problem,” he said.
“Quite commonly during this review period, the funding of all commissariat programmes was left to the whims and caprices of community leaders and opinion makers who were moneyed.
“Those who repent and are remorseful must not be persecuted, but we must embrace and gently mentor them back into rectitude.”
Mujuru loyalists were yesterday, however, conspicuous by their absence in several committees to deliberate on the resolutions of the party in various organs.
Mnangagwa was tasked to chair the important resolutions committee that would have Finance minister Patrick Chinamasa, Jonathan Moyo, Chris and Monica Mutsvangwa, Jorum Gumbo, A Ndlovu and academic Charity Manyeruke as members.
All members are aligned to Mnangagwa.
Chinamasa also presented the state of the economy to the congress and the progress report on ZimAsset.
It was not clear if current chairman Simon Khaya Moyo would retain his position as he has also come under-fire and linked to Mujuru.
