Mugabe using divide-and-rule tactics – Dongo

via Mugabe using divide-and-rule tactics – Dongo – DailyNews Live 3 September 2014 by Fungi Kwaramba

HARARE – Outspoken former Member of Parliament Margaret Dongo said yesterday President Robert Mugabe was fanning factionalism in Zanu PF.

The former Zimbabwe Union of Democrats (ZUD) president said the 90-year-old Zanu PF leader was surrounded by “lying cowards.”

In an exclusive interview with the Daily News yesterday, she also dismissed Mugabe’s wife Grace’s political mettle saying she cannot hold a brief previously held by the late First Lady, Sally.

Grace Mugabe was last month handpicked to lead the Women’s League in a move that has deepened divisions in Zanu PF.

“When it comes to politics it is a hot seat; it needs someone who is very experienced,” Dongo said.

“You cannot compare her with Sally, who was a freedom fighter, and stayed in the camps with men suffering the wrath during the war.”

Dongo, who hoped to oppose President Robert Mugabe in the 1996 presidential elections but did not meet the minimum age requirement of 40 years, said there was a faction that was using the First Lady.

“But why use her?  She is an innocent person. Whatever faction is using her it is known by Bob.”

Dongo, who said she happens to be a shareholder in Zanu PF by virtue of being a war veteran, said the discourse that is in Zanu PF was counterproductive.

“Instead of focusing on working for the people, they are fighting,” Dongo said.

“I have seen that things have gone out of control. People are scared of saying the truth. The factionalism in Zanu PF is something of their liking. The person who has created the factions is Gushungo himself,” she said referring to Mugabe’s totem.

Dongo alleged “Gushungo is doing it intentionally because he is using the divide-and-rule method.”

“He is nursing something that will haunt him one day,” she warned. “I am saying he is a member of a faction because when you look at the history of the First Lady, she does not have the credentials to be the Women’s League boss but she was accepted in the party.”

The former MP for Harare East said Mugabe “right now he cannot see the seriousness, vanhu vachaurayana (people will kill each).”

“There are cowards who always turn the goal posts and lie to Gushungo, and yet the ground should be open,” she said. “(Joice) Mujuru and (Emmerson) Mnangagwa are suffering for their openness and yet it is the cowards who created factionalism in Zanu PF.”

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