‘Mujuru plotting Mugabe coup’

via Audio & Pictures: ‘Mujuru plotting Mugabe coup’ – NewsDay Zimbabwe October 24, 2014

Grace ordered Mujuru to resign immediately to avoid further humiliating exposés.

Addressing a faction of war veterans and collaborators fronted by Buhera South MP Joseph Chinotimba during a no-holds-barred “Final Push” meeting at her Mazowe Orphanage Home, Grace also endorsed Justice minister Emmerson Mnangagwa to take over the Vice-Presidency.

War veterans’ national chairman Jabulani Sibanda, who yesterday said he was busy, was conspicuous by his absence and has not attended any of Grace’s meetings since she entered the political limelight.

“I said [Defence Forces Commander General Constantine] Chiwenga should bring his firing squad and pump the bullets in me for defending my husband. These are the same people who in 2008 led the ‘Bhora Musango’ campaign,” Grace said.

“Why do you want to remove Mugabe by force? This is a coup.

which they are planning,” she said, adding that Mujuru should have waited for her time than try to wrest power from the incumbent.

Grace also said: “Mnangagwa, that man I respect him. People should respect Mnangagwa. In 2004, he was voted by eight provinces to be VP, but he agreed to step down to allow Mujuru to take over when he had been voted for by all provinces. Likewise, like Mnangagwa, Mujuru should just do the honourable and resign.”

Mnangagwa is reportedly leading a faction battling with the Mujuru camp to succeed Mugabe.

“It is not good to be fired. It would be better if Mai Mujuru resigns today than wait to be fired by President Mugabe.”

Just before she tore into Mujuru’s private and public life, Grace told the Vice-President’s sympathisers to leave the venue or risk suffering a heart attack.

Grace said Mujuru was “ungrateful, power hungry, daft, corrupt, foolish, divisive and a disgrace” to Zimbabwe and the ruling Zanu PF. She said Mujuru’s immediate resignation would save Mugabe the task of firing her.

Grace, who has viciously attacked Mujuru in public during her previous rallies since her recent nomination to lead Zanu PF’s Women’s League, said the VP had no respect for the party’s leadership and was conniving with the opposition MDC and whites to reverse the gains of independence.

“If you are here and you support Mai Mujuru, you should immediately leave because what I am going to say will cause you diarrhoea. You should tie up your pants.”

Grace said she had played a pivotal role in Mujuru’s elevation to the Vice-Presidency in 2004, but the former started snubbing her soon after and plotting Mugabe’s ouster.

“She has been working with the opposition MDC. That is why she has never chanted the slogan, ‘Down with the MDC’. I told you that the MDC was formed in her house. Even after I have attacked her, look at how the opposition parties have sprung to her defence,” Grace said.

The First Lady said Mujuru had been undermining Mugabe as the Head of State and lying to him, and ordered her to “Stop it!”

She maintained that Mujuru was an extortionist and a hopeless politician who wanted to usurp power, adding that Mujuru was after making money and had been claiming that all minerals, including gold and diamonds in the country belonged to her.

Grace claimed that Mujuru had shares in several companies including a 10% shareholding in the privately-owned Daily News.

She claimed that Mujuru wanted to take all the diamonds through African Consolidated Resources (ACR), but government blocked the alleged deal in 2006.

Just recently, Grace said, Mujuru brought an Arab investor and lied to her that she runs diamond mines through ACR.

“She was given money, maybe $10 million, and that is the money she is using to buy people to unseat Mugabe,” Grace claimed.

She lashed out at Zanu PF Mashonaland East provincial chairman Ray Kaukonde and labelled him a pathetic Mujuru crony.

Grace said she did not care if people called her insane, as long as she has told the truth.

She said even if she was to be shot today, she would die with a smile on her face because she had exposed Mujuru and threatened to continue with the exposés until Mujuru leaves the political scene.

The delegates erupted in excitement when Grace said: “You are all possessed with Grace’s Holy Spirit; we exorcise demons in the name of Jesus.”

Grace claimed that Mujuru and Kaukonde paid youths to disrupt her rallies in Manicaland and Mashonalad East provinces.

“I had been running Danhiko (project for the handicapped) for years. Mujuru recently wrote me a praise-singing letter with $10 000 enclosed in it. I refused it. I cannot be bought with money,” she said.

“She is now slim. Yes, let her lose weight, I don’t care. They say I am a fool, but I just said, it’s okay. I’m a fool, but they will see.”

She also accused Mujuru of falsifying her liberation war credentials, insinuating she lied that she downed a helicopter during the war.

“All war veterans know what they did during the liberation war, not those who claim that they downed a chopper. Let people say it than praising yourself, only to be disapproved by others,” she said, in apparent reference to Foreign Affairs deputy minister Chris Mutsvangwa who claimed that Mujuru never downed a chopper.

Grace promised to address the concerns of war veterans and advised them that it was within their right to demonstrate and air their displeasure on issues affecting them.

Speaking at the same event, outgoing Women’s League boss Oppah Muchinguri said time was ripe to conduct a witch-hunt on Mujuru’s cronies. She claimed that they approached Grace to take over leadership of the Women’s League after realising that the Mujuru camp was running a parallel government structure.

However, Grace’s vitriolic attacks on Mujuru are likely to take centre stage at today’s politburo meeting, with some top Zanu PF leaders saying they would raise concern over the First Lady’s “undiplomatic outbursts”.
Observers yesterday said Mugabe could have pushed the meeting to today to allow his wife to set the tone for the meeting.