EMBATTLED Zanu PF Manicaland provincial chairperson and Home Affairs deputy minister Mike Madiro has received endorsement from the party’s Nyanga district, which resolved to rally behind his leadership.
BY OWN CORRESPONDENT
Madiro has been under fire from party members in areas such as Makoni, Chipinge and Chimanimani, who last week stormed the Zanu PF provincial offices in Mutare demanding his ouster.
An inter-district meeting held on Wednesday resolved to oppose demands by some Zanu PF districts in Manicaland to call for elections to replace Madiro’s executive.
The inter-district meeting was attended by several senior party officials, among them central committee members, Supa Mandiwanzira and Moses Gutu.
Gutu said the district did not understand why other areas were against Madiro’s executive.
“They must tell us and convince us where the problem is, otherwise here in Nyanga, we are behind Madiro,” he said.
There are fears that factionalism was slowly returning to Manicaland, with Madiro reportedly fighting to wrest control of the province from provincial political godmother and Zanu PF national chairperson, Oppah Muchinguri-Kashiri.
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Both Madiro and Muchinguri-Kashiri are close allies of President Emmerson Mnangagwa. The two could not be reached for comment yesterday.
Sources said Muchinguri-Kashiri, who also holds the powerful Cabinet post of Defence minister, wants all officials in the province to approach Mnangagwa through her, hence the current rift with Madiro.
“She wants a legislator from Chipinge to take over from Madiro,” a party source from Zimunya-Marange said.
Madiro has been under fire for imposing prohibition orders on Muchinguri-Kashiri’s perceived allies, former provincial vice-chairperson Joseph Mujati and Chipinge political commissariat, Prosper Sithole.
Disciplinary hearings against Mujati and Sithole and several others, which were being led by provincial vice-chairperson, Dorothy Mabika were recently disrupted by Zanu PF supporters, who stormed the venue of the hearings.
Infighting in the province resulted in Mnangagwa’s poor showing in the July 30 elections against MDC Alliance leader Nelson Chamisa, despite the ruling party winning 19 of the 26 seats in Manicaland.
There were also allegations that senior Zanu PF officials sponsored rival candidates in the July 30 elections, among them Talent Kadzima, who stood as an independent against the incumbent, Mandiwanzira.
The former ICT minister, however, won the seat.
Makiadi Mugabe, who lost the ward 29 election in Nyanga, said people who had no track record in Zanu PF were allowed to contest in the party primaries.
Among those who attended the inter-district meeting were Zanu PF national consultative assembly members, Anti-Malaria Chibvura and Francis Mutonhodza and Nyanga Rural District Council chairperson, Maggie Nyahoda.
Councillors, members of the provincial executive from Nyanga, youth league members, women’s league members and war veterans also attended the meeting.
