‘Moyo keen to divide Mugabe, Mnangagwa’

Source: ‘Moyo keen to divide Mugabe, Mnangagwa’ – DailyNews Live

Tendai Kamhungira      15 January 2017

HARARE – Maverick businessman-cum-politician Energy Mutodi is refusing to
hold back his withering criticism of President Robert Mugabe and Zanu PF
and here he speaks to The Daily News On Sunday Deputy Chief Writer, Tendai
Kamhungira, about his views on the rumbling succession issue and the storm
caused by images of him with Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa holding a
coffee mug in what has become known as the “Cupgate”; below are the
excerpts of the interview.

Q: There has been a lot of noise about your presence at a party organised
by Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa at his rural home, can you clarify
how and why you attended the event?

A: What I know is that like any other government official, the VP has
always been having such meetings, not meetings per se but gatherings with
his friends for the New Year and Christmas. The VP did not personally
invite me to the event, I happened to be there, one may say I was invited
or not, I don’t think anyone who was there got any written invitation to
confirm whether they had been invited or they had not been invited. But,
look, the bottom line is that there is nothing to go to town about
attending a Christmas event, a New Year’s Eve celebration at a house that
belongs to a public official because he is my vice president, he is your
vice president, so there is nothing unusual. Even if an opposition member
was there, the MDC or whichever party, vice president Mnangagwa is the
vice president of the nation.

Q: You were involved in the so-called Cupgate saga, was this a planned
thing?

A: The explanation I got is that VP Mnangagwa got that coffee mug as a
present from his workers and honestly if someone in his own house gets a
present from his workers, he doesn’t even know which closed present has
what item, he honestly opened and he saw that cup. It’s just a mere cup.

Q: And were the pictures part of any plan to send a particular message?

A: Someone just took those pictures of me with the vice president without
any intention to express any statement or any message. It was just an
ordinary picture. That’s not the only high profile picture that has been
taken between a citizen and a high profile figure. President Mugabe has
had pictures with (Wicknell) Chivayo, who has said a thing about that?
Because it is now Mnangagwa pictured with Mutodi, where is the enmity
coming from, where is the hate coming from? Am I not a citizen of
Zimbabwe? Is Mnangagwa not my vice president? Why should it matter to
someone if I am pictured with him? So you can only see that the concern is
coming from shallow-minded people who just want to create a storm in a tea
cup (literally).

Q: Now, other people went to town about the issue including Higher and
Tertiary Education minister Jonathan Moyo, what do you think could be the
reason why this coffee mug created so much noise?

A: Moyo is in the habit of creating divisions in the party and he is keen
to see a war between Mnangagwa and Mugabe. I have always reminded him,
quite often I always help him in discussions because we are in the same
Law School class, that there is nowhere he can go with factionalism, there
is nowhere he can go with trying to divide the nation. He is on record
claiming that he wanted to destroy Zanu PF from within and any normal
person will tell you that he is actually doing that mission, starting with
the expulsion of (former Vice President Joice) Mujuru and 41 party
members, among them 16 or so ministers. That was not a joke. That issue
could have been solved within the party amicably and people could not have
been expelled in such large numbers but he is in the habit of divisive
politics and he has actually said it before that he wanted to see to it
that Zanu PF was destroyed from within. Right now, Mugabe has been
alienated from the people who liberated the country. He has been alienated
from the war veterans and when you look at it Mugabe has always been
saying good things about war veterans, respecting them about the good that
they did in delivering independence to this country.Now for you to be
alienated from the war veterans at such an old age, it means there is
someone who is working flat out to make sure that the party is divided and
will eventually lose at the elections.

Q: Are you claiming in a way that Jonathan Moyo wants Zanu PF to lose
elections?

A: Jonathan Moyo is the enemy of Zanu PF. The Bible says the one who you
eat with in the same plate is your biggest enemy and that is Jonathan for
you. He is the Judas of Zanu PF; he doesn’t want that party to succeed
because he has got grievances against the party that date back to the
1980s.

He is not happy that the party continues to win elections, he has been in
and out of the party and for Mugabe to trust such a person, I am sure that
is the biggest blunder that the president has ever done.

Q: You are seen as a straight-talker when it comes to the Zanu PF
succession issue, as a party member how do you feel about the whole
situation?

A: I want to categorically state that the views that I project in the
media are my personal views and I believe being a Zanu PF member does not
take away my own personal opinion. I am a citizen of Zimbabwe, I have got
a right to pass any comment about public officials, be it the president,
be it the vice president, be it a minister, I have got that right. There
are decisions that are made by the party at congress, at conferences and
so on. I am not above those decisions but like I said it doesn’t take away
my freedom to express my views. I am a frank person. If I like you, I like
you, if I don’t like what you are doing I also tell you. I have written
“lavish” articles about Mugabe, I have written good articles about Zanu
PF but where I feel things are not right, I also express my views. So the
precedence I am just setting is that as citizens we must be guardians of
our own future. The fact that we have a president today does not mean we
are gonna (going to) have that president forever. We need to shape the
future through the views that we pass today, that’s exactly what I am
doing.

Q: Do you support the war veterans’ call for Mugabe to retire?

A: In the succession (issue) you will find that Mugabe and the whole
leadership must thank people who are talking about succession because
those people who are talking, have their views known but I can assure you
that 99 percent of Zanu PF members are of the view that Mugabe now needs
to rest. It won’t be nice for Mugabe to be defeated in elections because
99 percent of his members in Zanu PF think that he is no longer suitable
to remain at the helm of the party. People really think that he needs to
retire and allow for a successor to come. Now the war veterans are some of
the people who are talking about succession I thank them for that, for
being candid, realistic and for being honest.

Q: You openly support VP Mnangagwa, why do you think he is the heir
apparent?

A: I have offered my support for …Mnangagwa to be Mugabe’s successor
because of so many reasons that include the fact that we need a smooth
transfer of power from the incumbent to the next leader and only Mnangagwa
can provide that smooth transition because he has been in the trenches
with the president, he knows the strengths and the weaknesses of the
system, he knows our enemies, he knows our friends, he has got a strategy
to take this country forward, because he already knows the past. For you
to take a country forward, you must know its history, so that’s why I have
favoured him to be the next president.The other reason is that VP
Mnangagwa is a lawyer by profession; he will implement the rule of law if
he is elected the president. This country is now on its knees because of
corruption, because of economic mismanagement and incompetence of public
officials and as an experienced government official, a lawyer by
profession, he will be able to really turn around the fortunes of the
country for the better.The other reason why I say … Mnangagwa is a
better candidate is because we all know him. He has not been the
president, some people may want to accuse him of this and that,
Gukurahundi…and so on, he has never been the president of Zimbabwe. We
all know that it is only the president who has got the power over the army
and over the activities of Cabinet and whatever government arm, so why
should we say then Mnangagwa is responsible for the past of this country?
He is also a calm character, quiet, patient, loyal, as he has shown
loyalty to Mugabe for the past 50 years, so what more do you want, what
kind of a person are we expecting?

Q: Do you think the VP is now ripe for presidency?

A: He has not yet done enough, what he now needs to do is to make sure
that some of those people who are around him, who are closing him in and
saying you are our man; he must perhaps do away with those people to
create room for new people to come in to help him with his ambition, if
ever he has the ambition to be president. The VP can even work with First
Lady Grace Mugabe, and discuss the future with her. There is nothing wrong
with that, he can even discuss with (Saviour) Kasukuwere. The VP now needs
to go for his perceived enemies. There are so many people around the VP,
some of them are not even educated, they are possessive of him, they want
to create an impression that he is where he is because of them, he must
kick those people away from him.

Q: Why do you think a member from the G40 must not take over from
Mugabe?

A: To be honest any takeover by Grace Mugabe will not be accepted by
Zimbabweans, not even a single Zimbabwean will accept that because it will
be taken as a continuation of Mugabe’s government. You cannot transfer
power from yourself to another member of your family, that will be
regarded as a monarchy and it will be a disgrace to the democracy of this
country, and Mugabe has categorically said he will not transfer power to
his wife. Mugabe is not a naive person; he will not stoop so low to that
extent of transferring power to his wife, so that one is already out. Then
coming to Kasukuwere, Kasukuwere in his post as commissar, he has presided
over the disintegration of the party, what more if you give him a higher
responsibility, what is he going to do? Already as a political commissar
you have seen more than 300 cadres dismissed from the party. It means you
are a failure. You cannot get a higher post when you cannot perform at a
lower post. So definitely the so-called G40 has no candidate to take over
from Mugabe, there is no candidate whatsoever. We need a candidate who is
gonna guarantee our sovereignty, who is gonna guarantee our prosperity,
who is gonna guarantee our unity, that is not there in the G40.

Q: Are you not afraid of openly stating your views pertaining to the
succession issue?

A: I am not afraid of anything, I am not a coward.  I am prepared to die
for my views. I am not afraid of anyone, I know some people will be
afraid, saying he is going too far, but no, that’s not going too far,
that’s being frank and candid. I should not be afraid.