BY TAPFUMANEI MUCHABAIWA ZIMBABWE has clocked a year without a second Vice-President after Kembo Mohadi resigned in March last year following a sex scandal.
The post of the second VP was created following the 1987 Unity Accord between Zanu PF and former ZIMBABWE PF Zapu.
Since then, the country has had two VPs.
But former VP Joice Mujuru once served alone from 2009 to 2014 following the death of Joseph Msika from the ex-PF Zapu side.
Presidential spokesperson George Charamba yesterday said he could not comment on when President Emmerson Mnangagwa would appoint a second VP.
Constitutional lawyer and National Constitutional Assembly leader Lovemore Madhuku said there was no law that bound the President to appoint a second VP.
“The President has not breached any part of the Constitution by not appointing a second VP. The 1987 Unity Accord is irrelevant in the appointment of the VPs because it is a private contract between Zanu PF and PF Zapu. That cannot be enforced using the laws of Zimbabwe,” he said.
But political analyst Methuseli Moyo said there was grumbling among ex-Zapu cadres over failure to fill the position.
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“The way Mohadi was induced to resign was very suspicious, and the amount of time it has taken to replace him, or reappoint him makes the issue more suspicious,” Moyo said.
“No doubt Mohadi is bitter, and his fellow ex-Zapu colleagues are anxious about what befell him, and who will succeed him. The way ED came into power makes him indebted to a lot of people who made it happen. He wants those harbouring ambitions to come out. It plays to his advantage to keep everybody anxious and hoping.”
Another analyst Effie Ncube said: “Mnangagwa has never been a believer in the Unity Accord. Remember, he led from the front in the persecution of the PF Zapu members and in the commission of the Gukurahundi genocide in the 1980s.
“The second VP was architecture of the Unity Accord that was imposed as a result of the genocide. He is painstakingly destroying the constitution of Zanu PF while drifting back to the Zanu of the 1970s.”
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