Zanu PF stands no chance next year, warns former provincial chair

Source: Zanu PF stands no chance next year, warns former provincial chair – NewsDay Zimbabwe September 20, 2017

FORMER Zanu PF Matabeleland South provincial member and war veterans’ chairman, Jabulani Phetshu, has warned that the ruling party stands no chance of winning the upcoming general elections if it does not urgently address deep-seated factionalism that has permeated the party’s structures in the province.

BY MTHANDAZO NYON

Phetshu yesterday told Southern Eye that endless factional fights had caused him to quit the ruling party, although he still supports President Robert Mugabe’s candidature for next year’s elections.

“It’s now a year since I resigned from Zanu PF. On top of that, I was suspended at the 2014 congress and it’s now three years,” he narrated.

“I have decided to open up and give the reasons, so that even the party at national level must know that there are other cadres, who resigned from the party being loyal to the President, to the party and loyal to the revolution, but were forced by circumstances that are in Matabeleland South province.”

Phetshu bemoaned factionalism, saying it had hounded him out of the party and this could be catastrophic for Zanu PF next year.

“There is serious factionalism in Matabeleland South province, which caused me to resign. I won the post of a central committee member and that post was taken away from me because they said I did not belong to their group,” he said. “The second reason was because I am an ex-Zipra and my post was given to my colleague, who is an ex-Zanla.”

Phetshu claimed he was suspended after he was wrongly labelled an ally of former Vice-President Joice Mujuru.

“I want to knock sense into their heads that even today, if I was in Mujuru’s faction, did I join Mujuru three years down the line?
“I even told them that I joined Zanu PF through the Unity Accord (signed between Mugabe and the late Vice-President Joshua Nkomo in 1987) and I still stand by my word.

“I never became Zanu PF and that’s my stance. I support only the President,” he said.
But provincial secretary William Dhewa dismissed Phetshu’s claims, saying: “We cannot discuss this issue. He is no longer a member of Zanu PF.”