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NewsDay

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Time Mugabe ends this madness

Opinion & Analysis
Instead of directing their energies to solving the country’s problems, Zanu PF politicians seem hell-bent on tearing each other apart

The past two weeks have seen an unprecedented upscale in Zanu PF infighting and have provided titillating information on the factionalism in the governing party.

The media, no doubt, lapped on this and gossip mongers are having a field day reading and spreading information on the goings-on in the ruling party, but a time has come for this to end.

President Robert Mugabe has in the past spoken out on party unity, but we feel if he really wanted to stem factionalism, he would have done so long back.

Mugabe AU address

It increasingly looks beyond doubt that the biggest beneficiary of this factionalism is Mugabe, himself, as the party factions seem to be slugging it out to ensure that he remains in power and unchallenged.

None of the factions are interested in removing Mugabe and that consolidates his stranglehold on power, while his followers tear each other apart — divide and rule tactics if you like.

However, we feel this has gone on far too long and now Mugabe should rein-in his feuding party members.

Zimbabwe, surely, has far too many issues to worry about than who was stealing underwear during the war and who sired which politician.

Instead of directing their energies to solving the country’s problems, Zanu PF politicians seem hell-bent on tearing each other apart and with it drag the country down an abyss.

We appreciate that in any group of people there are bound to be differences, but it becomes worrying when the contradictions begin to dominate everything else and the party cannot seem to do anything else.

Thus, as Zanu PF prepares to hold its politburo meeting on Wednesday, we pray that Mugabe takes charge and calls his warring troops to order.

But we are not holding our breath. Factionalism has long been a byword in Zanu PF and each time the President has called for unity, his party has responded by being more vicious in its fights.

Zanu PF members celebrated the ouster of former Vice-President Joice Mujuru on accusations of factionalism and their response to that was to make their internal wars even more brutal.

We will not play peace broker between Higher Education minister Jonathan Moyo and his War Vets counterpart Christopher Mutsvangwa, but their fights are increasingly becoming infantile and the sooner they remove them from the public domain the better.

We also urge Mugabe’s spokesperson, George Charamba to stay out of party and factional politics.

He is a civil servant, after all, and should be able to serve everyone equally regardless of party or factional affiliation.

Zimbabwe finds itself in this mess because our politicians have mastered the art of fighting amongst themselves instead of serving the country.

We hope Mugabe calls his party members to order and that energies must be spent on serving Zimbabwe rather than individual agendas.