FORMER Zanu PF youth secretary, Pupurai Togarepi, yesterday said he would not contest the party’s decision to relieve him of his post, although he contends the decision was unprocedural.
BY OBEY MANAYITI
Togarepi was, early this year, suspended together with seven provincial youth leaders on allegations of campaigning for Vice-President Emmerson Mnangagwa in the race to succeed Mugabe.
After the suspension, the party was supposed to drag him to a disciplinary hearing, but Mugabe on Saturday unilaterally elevated Makoni West legislator, Kudzi Chipanga, who was Togarepi’s deputy to the position of youth secretary.
“I respect the President’s decision. I was privileged to be in this position and I don’t have any qualms with the decision taken. I was an appointee and I don’t think it’s necessary to have a (disciplinary) procedure on an appointed person,” Togarepi said. He also said he has confidence in Chipanga’s leadership.
Meanwhile, Chipanga yesterday said his first port of call was to unite various party factions ahead of the crunch 2018 elections, where Mugabe will most likely face a single candidate sponsored by several opposition parties.
“We have a mammoth task to prove to the party and the nation at large that President Mugabe’s choice to let the youth lead themselves is not a mistake.
“As Zanu PF youths, we have the capacity to lead ourselves, unlike in the past, where we had a secretary, who was not a youth by virtue of age,” he said.
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Chipanga, however, denied suggestions that he was a beneficiary of internal party fights.
“Don’t take indiscipline as factionalism. If we identify those who want to push factionalism, they will not spend a day in the party. We will fire them,” he said.
