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Zanu PF blocks Mnangagwa backers

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ZANU PF has adopted exclusionary internal election guidelines designed to effectively shut out former Vice-President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s backers from contesting for central committee (CC) positions ahead of the ruling party’s extra-ordinary congress next month.

ZANU PF has adopted exclusionary internal election guidelines designed to effectively shut out former Vice-President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s backers from contesting for central committee (CC) positions ahead of the ruling party’s extra-ordinary congress next month.

BY Everson Mushava

The new guidelines adopted by the women and youths leagues on November 8, bar members with a criminal record or pending disciplinary action from seeking election into the central committee.

Eligible members are now expected to “have served in the party structures for a period of not less than 15 consecutive years, five of which one must have served as provincial executive member, must not have been subject to criminal conviction or insolvency, must not have been found guilty and convicted by the party disciplinary proceedings during the past five years.”

“Current members of the CC, women’s league national executive, NCA (national consultative assembly) and those graduating from the national executive of the youth league are eligible if they are not affected by bullet two or three of the above stated criteria.”

This would mean Mnangagwa’s backers would not form the pool of members to be selected for politburo positions, as Zanu PF looks set to have a reconfigured structure ahead of next year’s harmonised elections.

Mnangagwa was fired from both party and government last week, leaving his backers, most of them very senior party officials and liberation war stalwarts on tenterhooks.

Most of those who backed Mnangagwa’s Team Lacoste faction have now been shortlisted for possible disciplinary action, a move which effectively bars them from contesting in the CC elections.

Some of the party’s heavyweights linked to Mnangagwa’s camp include Oppah Muchinguri, Patrick Chinamasa, Kembo Mohadi, Christopher Mushohwe, Martin Dinha, Josaya Hungwe, Tshinga Dube and Priscah Mupfumira, among others.