Buhera West legislator Tafadzwa Mugwadi has launched a scathing attack on Zanu PF’s newly found benefactors that flaunt money to get senior positions in the ruling party.
Mugwadi, a former Zanu PF director of information, is locked in fierce turf war with President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s advisor Paul Tungwarara whose push to be co opted into the central committee through Manicaland province has created serious divisions.
In a lengthy post on social media platform X, Mugwadi accused Tungwarara of using wealth, proxies and clandestine meetings to undermine him.
He alleged that Mnangagwa’s advisor was “flaunting riches” to buy political influence and deploying “hired political urchins” to intimidate him and other cadres, who delivered Zanu PF victories in the 2018 and 2023 elections.
The unrestrained attack on the day Tungwarara addressed a Zanu PF event in Chipinge on Saturday where he attacked unnamed senior party officials in Manicaland for allegedly spreading gossip and causing divisions.
A few days earlier Zanu PF commissar Munyaradzi Machacha had ordered the Manicaland provincial coordinating committee to reverse the controversial businessman’s nomination into the central committee, which he said violated party regulations.
Machacha’s stance was supported by Zanu PF legal affairs secretary Patrick Chinamasa, who is also a senior figure in Manicaland.
Mugwadi accused Tungwarara of organising clandestine kangaroo gatherings in violation of party directives “to spew hate, polarise and sow divisions.”
“Worse when you are aiming at people, comrades and cadres who sweated for 2018 and 2023 victories in your absence from both the ballot and the party,” the MP said without mentioning the businessman by name in his post.
“Not to mention that the second republic is a product of collective sweat, sacrifice and unity of purpose of our leadership and other known key players while you are unaccounted for during that period and no one knows where you were.
“Now, instead of using your given opportunity to show your skill, you start seeking for gun salutes, red carpets and creating a false equivalency to the president, intimidating those who disagree with your misguided juvenile political activism, as if they were against the principal."
Mugawadi also questioned Tungwarara’s political credentials, saying he was absent during key moments in the party’s recent history, including election campaigns.
“The second republic is a product of collective sweat, sacrifice and unity of purpose, while you were unaccounted for,” he said.
“Now, let me be very clear, open and direct to you, as Hon Tafadzwa Mugwadi, that unlike you who employ clandestine ghost characters and hired social media martyrs of folly to chide me.
“I remain Tafadzwa Mugwadi who does not and shall never worship your comic, theatrical and uneventful politics, nor take your threats as news, simply because you are not the epitome of presidential appointees."
He also dismissed what he described as veiled threats by Tungwarara to expel Zanu PF members, who are opposed to his ambitions and reminded him that he was a mere advisor, not the president.
“You are not anywhere close to equivalence to the principal so as to issue threats against his party deployees,” he said. “Who are you?”
The fallout between the two came amid growing discord in Zanu PF over the influence of money in internal ruling party politics.
Zanu PF veterans are not happy with the way a clique of businessmen such as Tungwarara are splashing cash, vehicles and other material inducements to buy positions in the party.
A similar dispute erupted in Harare where businessman Kudakwashe Tagwirei used his financial muscle to force his inclusion in the central committee.
Tagwirei is said to be Mnangagwa’s preferred successor ahead of Vice President Constantino Chiwenga.
Chiwenga, who led the coup that toppled Robert Mugabe in 2027 as the army commander, has for a long time been considered as Zanu PF’s undisputed next leader.
Ahead of the Zanu PF conference in Mutare in October, the VP confronted the 83 year-old ruler over the controversial businessmen, including Tungwarara and Tagwirei whom he accused of hijacking the ruling party using their ill-gotten wealth.