FORMER Vice-President Joice Mujuru and senior members of her faction were “too committed” to attend the burial of former Zanu PF Harare provincial chairman and ex-Energy minister Amos Midzi last Saturday.
BY RICHARD CHIDZA
Most top officials of the Mujuru camp, among them former Zanu PF secretary for administration Didymus Mutasa and expelled information chief Rugare Gumbo, were conspicuous by their absence at Glen Forest Cemetery where Midzi was laid to rest.
Gumbo, who has emerged as spokesperson of a political outfit now going by the moniker “People First” that is coaxing Mujuru to lead it and confront the might of President Robert Mugabe’s Zanu PF ahead of the 2018 elections, yesterday said there was nothing sinister about their absence.
“We paid our condolences to the Midzi family. We respected him (Amos Midzi) as a colleague and committed cadre, but we could not attend the burial because of commitments that could not be postponed,” Gumbo said.
Gumbo was, however, evasive on whether the said commitments had anything to do with plans to form a new political party.
“You should ask Mugabe why he did not attend when his people were claiming that Midzi was still an ordinary card-carrying member of their party. Like I said, we had commitments that could not be passed on, but I cannot say the nature of the commitments. All shall be revealed in due time,” he said.
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Gumbo is one of the few surviving members of Zanu’s liberation War Council (Dare ReChimurenga) mandated with prosecuting the vicious 1970s bush war that brought majority rule 35 years ago.
“We were represented by the likes of Mavhaire (Dzikamai, immediate past Energy minister), Kaukonde (Ray, ex-Zanu PF Mashonaland East chairman), Nguni (Sylvester, former Minister in Mujuru’s Office) and many others.”
Midzi was found dead in his car last week at his farm just outside Harare days after being demoted to an ordinary card-carrying member by the Zanu PF politburo in the ongoing brutal purge of senior leaders seen as having been sympathetic to Mujuru.
Postmortem results indicated that he died of suspected poisoning.
Midzi was among nine pro-Mujuru chairpersons ejected from their positions in the run-up to the ruling party’s congress last December where over 140 top party officials were axed for allegedly conniving with Mujuru in a plot to oust Mugabe.
Zanu PF denied Midzi a hero status, but offered a State-assisted funeral.
