Source: ‘Mugabe has final say on female VP’ – DailyNews Live
Mugove Tafirenyika 15 March 2017
HARARE – President Robert Mugabe has the final say on the candidate to be
elevated to the post of Zanu PF vice president in fulfilment of the
party’s 2015 women’s quota resolution, women’s league information
secretary Thokozile Mathuthu said yesterday.
Following Mugabe’s complaint about lack of implementation of critical
resolutions dating back to 2015 at the Masvingo annual conference last
year, the league has been pushing for the insertion of the women’s quota
clause in the party’s constitution, amid speculation that First Lady Grace
Mugabe will be seconded for the post.
Mathuthu told the Daily News in an interview that the matter rested with
Mugabe, since the party constitution empowers him to solely appoint his
deputies.
She said once Zanu PF legal secretary Patrick Chinamasa re-introduces the
clause in the party constitution, the recently turned 93 leader will make
the appointment accordingly – either at an extra-ordinary congress or the
normal one due in 2019.
“It is not up to us as a league to say who will become vice president
because the party constitution says the president appoints his deputies,
so we will be guided by what the president wants,” Mathuthu said, adding
that “all we want is representation and not who in particular”.
“However, in 2015, we made a resolution to have it reinstated to ensure
that we have representation in the presidium, making it 50-50 and we are
waiting for that to take effect.”
If reinstated, the women’s quota resolution will see Mugabe dropping
either one of his two deputies – Emmerson Mnangagwa and Phelekezela Mphoko
– amid speculation that the move is targeting the former’s scalp.
Mnangagwa is accused by the youth and women’s league-backed Generation 40
(G40) faction of seeking to stampede Mugabe out of power before the end of
his term next year.
The G40 wants Mugabe to be life president and has since endorsed him as
the Zanu PF candidate in next year’s elections.
Mathuthu further said “the youth league … is also backing our demands
for the women’s quota….we are united in this and there is nothing wrong
with the youths coming to walk on the same path with their mothers. Who
doesn’t want to be near their mother?”
Last October, Mugabe and his wife took turns to publicly declare their
support for the embattled Mnangagwa, a move observers viewed as a sign
that reports of a sinister plot to have the VP dropped were true.
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