Source: War vets seek order to stop congress – DailyNews Live
Andrew Kunambura 21 September 2017
HARARE – Zimbabwe National Liberation War Veterans Association (Znlwva)
executive led by Christopher Mutsvangwa has approached the High Court
seeking an injunction to stop a mooted extraordinary congress to elect a
new leadership.
This comes after President Robert Mugabe’s Zanu PF party has turned its
guns on Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s bastion of support by pushing
for the dissolution of Znlwva’s executive though an extraordinary congress
to be held soon.
Through the extraordinary congress, the ruling party is hoping to coerce
the Znlwva membership into serving divorce papers on Mutsvangwa and his
executive that has become a thorn in the flesh for Mugabe and his Zanu PF
party.
The party’s politburo meeting last week on Wednesday felt that the
association should go for an extraordinary congress to end the frosty
relations between Zanu PF and Znlwva.
The explosive meeting held at the party’s national headquarters in Harare
tasked War Veterans minister Tshinga Dube to set in motion preparations
for the elective congress.
Defence minister Sydney Sekeramayi initiated the discussions in his
capacity as secretary for war veterans in the party’s Soviet-style
politburo.
Sekeramayi has an oversight over the War Veterans’ ministry. In their
urgent chamber application for an interdict filed on Monday by the Znlwva
lawyers, Mahuni Giridi Law Chambers, the war veterans cited War Veterans
ministry permanent secretary Walter Tapfumaneyi as the first respondent
and Zanu PF secretary for war veterans affairs, Sekeramayi as the second
respondent.
They argued that Zanu PF had no legal right to meddle in the affairs of
the association.
“It is the applicant’s further submission that as a result of undue
political influence being brought to bear on the applicant and its
members, the applicant’s current and serving national executive
leadership, applicant’s principle of political neutrality and its
constitution have been undermined.
“It is further stated that at the recent meet-the-people rally organised
by the ruling party, statements were allegedly made that the applicant was
supposed to undergo a purging campaign in order to remove those members of
the applicant’s national executive who have been expelled from Zanu PF.
The purging process had been given a three-month ultimatum for completion.
“The respondents have been actively advancing the purging agenda by
unlawfully convening a meeting scheduled for September 19, 2017 whose
agenda is to purge the applicant’s executive of non-Zanu PF members. The
respondents have allegedly directed provincial and district executives to
attend the meeting which has been irregularly convened ultra vires the
applicant’s constitution.”
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