G40 hunts Mnangagwa, Team Lacoste

Source: G40 hunts Mnangagwa, Team Lacoste – DailyNews Live 12 January 2017

Blessings Mashaya and Fungi Kwaramba

HARARE – As Zanu PF’s “Cupgate” saga, and its deadly tribal, factional and
succession wars continue to rage, scores of the ruling party’s officials
drawn from the country’s 10 provinces gathered in Harare yesterday to
demand a probe into Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa.

Well-placed Zanu PF sources who spoke to the Daily News last night also
suggested that the troubled ruling party’s tortured politics were
“changing” again, with Mnangagwa and his party backers (Team Lacoste) now
the ones on the back foot and under serious pressure.

“It’s a ding dong affair my friend. Until now it was the G40 (Generation
40 faction) which was on the verge of implosion, but now things look very
ominous for Lacoste (Mnangagwa faction),” a senior party official who has
consistently claimed to be “non-aligned” said.

Yesterday’s dramatic events also come as Mnangagwa has been under the cosh
in recent days for hosting sacked Zanu PF officials at his rural home
during the festive season, with his party foes alleging that this was in
fact a meeting organised to plot the ouster of President Robert Mugabe
from power.

The G40-linked group which met at the Zanu PF headquarters in Harare
yesterday subsequently issued a statement in which they called for a probe
into Mnangagwa for hobnobbing with war veterans’ leader Christopher
Mutsvangwa and maverick Harare businessman, Energy Mutodi.

Apart from provincial chairpersons and regional commissars, the meeting
was also attended by representatives of the youths, the women’s league and
sections of the war veterans corps.

They also called for a meeting with Mugabe, so that they could register
their complaints against Mnangagwa and Team Lacoste with the nonagenarian
directly.

It was not clear last night whether Mugabe would accede to this demand,
and whether he knew about the meeting beforehand.

“As provincial chairpersons and political commissars, we notice with
concern the practice by some of our senior party leaders who are now and
again, seen in the company of elements of people who were expelled from
Zanu PF for gross indiscipline.

“This kind of behaviour puts doubts on those leaders’ commitment and
loyalty to decisions that are made by Zanu PF collectively, as party
leaders should not be seen to be associating and entertaining people who
were expelled from the party for indiscipline which involved disrespect of
the party leadership,” the group said in its statement.

Since the images of Mnangagwa holding the much-obsessed about coffee mug
emerged in the public domain, the VP’s foes have gone to town about the
issue, interpreting it as his open statement that he has unbridled
presidential ambitions.

There were also questions surrounding Mutodi’s presence at the party, even
as the controversial businessman has said that he went to the function
without receiving any invitation like the other guests.

But the highly-opinionated musician-turned-politician appeared to make
things worse for Mnangagwa when he said this week Zanu PF should hold an
extra-ordinary congress to install Mnangagwa as Mugabe’s successor.

Mutodi also claimed that Mugabe, who turns 93 next month, had become so
unpopular in Zanu PF that “99 percent” of the party’s members now wanted
him to resign before the eagerly-anticipated 2018 national elections, as
there was allegedly no way that the nonagenarian could win elections
against popular opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai.

“Mugabe must retire. What we must be discussing now is how we share power
in Zanu PF post-Mugabe,” he said, adding that it will be very embarrassing
for Mugabe if he stood for election again and lost.

“Mnangagwa is too loyal to Mugabe, to the extent that he cannot even
express his own views for his boss to retire. It’s up to Mugabe himself to
be really thankful to his loyalists who have helped him to remain in power
for this long and not the opportunists who praise him during the day and
denigrate him during the night.

“This is what the man (Mnangagwa) is made of and he has shown total
loyalty and obedience to the president,” Mutodi told the Daily News.

Zanu PF insiders have consistently told the Daily News that underlying the
former liberation movement’s deadly and seemingly unstoppable tribal and
factional wars is its unresolved succession question, with the G40 faction
apparently doing everything possible to torpedo Mnangagwa’s mooted
presidential ambitions.

The group which met at the Zanu PF Headquarters yesterday also claimed
that Mutodi was no longer a Zanu PF member as he had allegedly been sacked
from the party.

However, Mutodi maintains on his part that he is still a member of the
ruling party’s Mashonaland East provincial executive.

Apart from Mutodi, Mnangagwa’s rivals were miffed by the presence of
Mutsvangwa and expelled former Mashonaland West provincial chairman Temba
Mliswa at the burial of the late national hero Peter Chanetsa last week,
at the National Heroes Acre.

Although the occasion was a State and not a Zanu PF function, which meant
that any citizen who wished to do so could attend the burial, the surprise
presence of Mutsvangwa and Mliswa in the VIP tent in particular expectably
set tongues wagging among the gathered ruling party supporters.

This was more so as since the former liberation movement’s divisive 2014
congress, the warring ruling party had routinely chased away from its
gatherings its suspended former stalwarts, including its ex-national
political commissar and former Information minister, Webster Shamu, who
was recently re-admitted into the party.

In addition, Mutsvangwa and his executive had since their expulsion from
Zanu PF been boycotting State functions, including last year’s Heroes’ Day
celebrations.

The disgruntled former freedom fighters have also since stepped up their
efforts to force Mugabe to step down, accusing the increasingly frail
nonagenarian of being at the centre of the country’s current rot.

And like Mutodi and Mutsvangwa, Mliswa has also recently suggested that
Mugabe should hand over power to Mnangagwa.

“Zanu PF’s solution to the economic problem is for the president to step
down and Mnangagwa, who is the most senior, to take over.

“Don’t call me a Mnangagwa person, unless there is someone more senior in
Zanu PF than Mnangagwa, then you tell me.

“If Mnangagwa does take over, he is going to stop the bleeding in terms of
people suffering. We must be cognisant that the people are suffering,”
Mliswa told journalists at the end of last year.