NATIONAL People’s Party (NPP) leader, Joice Mujuru (pictured) has been accused of violating sections of her party constitution during the just-ended convention, which confirmed her as the opposition’s substantive leader.
BY BLESSED MHLANGA
The allegations come after it emerged that Mujuru allegedly manipulated the confirmation process by failing to either confirm a treasurer-general of the party or having elections to fill the post during the convention.
Section 15(b) of the NPP constitution states that the election of president, two vice presidents, chairperson, secretary-general and treasurer-general shall be done within seven days of proclamation of the convention and should be confirmed at the convention.
NewsDay recently gathered that Mujuru’s party has no substantive treasurer-general, after Wilbert Mubaiwa, who was elected for the position was not confirmed at the convention held in Harare last month.
NPP secretary-general, Gift Nyandoro, who is the party’s acting treasurer-general, was coy on the matter, saying the complaints had not yet been brought to his attention.
“Confirmation is a process that is an end product of an electoral process that is dealt with by the party elections directorate. But such allegations of breach of the constitution have not been brought to my attention,” he said. NPP sources said they were still in a state of shock as to why Mubaiwa was not confirmed as treasurer-general, although he has singlehandedly funded most of the party’s programmes.
“Mubaiwa’s name was not read out at the convention although he was the treasurer-general elect. Our constitution is clear that if a candidate is not confirmed at convention, elections should be held for that post and it should be filled at convention,” a senior party member said.
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Mujuru, who is allegedly playing a tribal balancing act, is reported to have elbowed out Mubaiwa with a view to replace him with a representative from Matabeleland.
Mubaiwa has since written to Mujuru accusing her of being worse than Zanu PF and stifling democracy.
“President, it was never clear to most people, including myself, that a contestable post, it was just for the Matabeleland region … it is my humble submission that this reservation should not have applied as it must never apply to contested posts in the first place in any democracy,” he wrote.
