President Robert Mugabe yesterday berated senior government officials and Zanu PF bigwigs for letting down the nation, which is now facing an unprecedented economic crisis, while concentrating on toxic factional fights and the never-ending debates centred around his successor.
BY XOLISANI NCUBE
Addressing a Zanu PF central committee meeting in Harare yesterday ahead of the party’s annual conference in Masvingo this week, Mugabe said 2016 has been a disappointing year for him as indiscipline and factional fights diverted attention, with senior members jostling for higher positions.
“While our people, generally our grassroots, have remained united, we the leaders have failed to show maturity.
This is quite disturbing. As leaders, we failed to demonstrate the high levels of maturity and discipline expected from us,” he said.
Zanu PF has been rocked by intense factional wars pitting Team Lacoste, reportedly linked to Vice-President Emmerson Mnangagwa, and G40, said to have links to First Lady Grace Mugabe, with both battling to sponsor the veteran politician’s successor.
“I have said this before: There is nothing wrong in expressing ambitions, an aspiration for position which would be available for any post in the party,” Mugabe said.
“But I have, on most occasions, frowned upon shameless unbridled ambitions, which seek to rise and rub up shoulders of the ladder. You don’t jump for party positions. People are spending time scheming against each other, plotting to harm each other, ahhh.”
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He railed against dirty politics and mudslinging, saying no one should be allowed to infiltrate the party and use its members to advance “selfish agendas”.
“The main focus of the party requires us to commit ourselves to serve it diligently and quietly. Is this what we are doing? So, dirty politics should never be entertained in the party,” Mugabe said.
“The traditions of the party are that you rise up slowly. You subject yourself to the people. You are elected by the people and if you win, you would have won, and if you lose, you would not have lost being a member of the party, but you have merely lost the chance for that moment.
“There is always a tomorrow. So, these things, which [political commissar, Saviour] Kasukuwere calls shenanigans, whatever that word means, should end.”
The central committee, theoretically Zanu PF’s highest decision-making body in-between congresses, was set to receive a report from the politburo on the state of the party and preparations for the annual conference underway in Masvingo.
Mugabe told Zanu PF supporters that without unity within the ruling party, it was impossible for the government to succeed.
Meanwhile, Zanu PF secretary for transport, Oppah Muchinguri, yesterday handed over 45 of the 360 top-of-the-range vehicles purchased by the party for the 2018 elections campaign.
The vehicles will be used by the women and youth leagues, as well as provincial leaders to drum up support ahead of the crunch polls, where Mugabe faces a sterner test from an envisaged opposition coalition.
The fleet includes buses that would also be used to ferry supporters to campaign rallies across the country. Muchinguri said the party was working on setting up its own garage to ensure service and maintenance of the fleet.
