Source: VP allies threaten peace – Minister – DailyNews Live
Fungi Kwaramba 3 June 2017
HARARE – Zanu PF politburo member and Higher Education minister, Jonathan
Moyo, may have added fuel to the ruling party’s burning tribal, factional
and succession wars after he warned that a faction backing Vice President
Emmerson Mnangagwa could plunge the country into chaos if the VP fails to
succeed President Robert Mugabe.
This comes as the party’s infighting has escalated in recent months – a
development that saw both Mugabe and his powerful wife, Grace, making
fervent calls for party unity at yesterday’s mega Zanu PF rally in
Marondera, ahead of next year’s eagerly-anticipated national elections.
Moyo, who Zanu PF insiders claim is one of the kingpins of the Generation
40 (G40) faction which is fiercely opposed to Mnangagwa succeeding Mugabe,
said on Thursday that the VP’s backers – known as Team Lacoste – could
trigger chaos in the country if the Midlands godfather failed to land the
presidency.
“It is notable that the political position taken by Team Lacoste runs
against the grain of the nationalist agenda largely because they are
divisive … but of greater concern to me about the threat to peace and
order posed by the so-called Team Lacoste are the issues contained in a
document called Blue Ocean that started circulating in 2015 and in an
interview that … Mnangagwa gave to the elitist British magazine, the New
Statesman, entitled the Last days of Robert Mugabe.
“These two sinister documents tell a very sad story of capturing State
institutions and targeting certain individuals for extra judicial attacks,
in as much as they threaten peace and order in the country,” Moyo said in
a presentation at Sapes Trust.
“The Team Lacoste faction is presenting itself in general and the Vice
President Mnangagwa as a shoo-in … if you read things, talk to people,
look at their behaviour, the message is, the balance of forces has shifted
and what we are going to see going forward is the assumption of power by
the Team Lacoste faction.
“They are masters of whispers and you find them saying tapinda tapinda (we
are in), and the refrain, when you develop an interest is mudhara achauya
(a song by Jah Prayzah whose literal translation means the old man is
coming).
“The so-called Team Lacoste poses a serious threat to the nationalist
programme … the time has come for the silent majority to stand up and
speak up.
“Silence must not be an option for those who support the President
otherwise you will wake-up to something tomorrow and you will regret.
People who say they are on the verge of taking power must be subjected to
scrutiny,” Moyo added.
Not for the first time, the stunning remarks by a senior Zanu PF official
– publicly warning about the dangers of the ruling party’s worsening
succession wars – caught many by surprise, and may serve to harden boiling
intra-party emotions.
In February, the country’s opposition also warned that Zanu PF’s worsening
factional, tribal and succession wars could plunge the country into a
civil war.
Former Finance minister and now leader of the opposition People’s
Democratic Party (PDP), Tendai Biti, said then that Mugabe’s unwillingness
to groom a successor, was a ticking time bomb which could destroy the
country.
This was after Mugabe had said pointedly in his birthday interview with
the ZBC that no one in his warring ruling party was worthy of succeeding
him, while at the same time praising Grace.
“Mugabe’s recent utterances in which he denigrated his deputies, defining
them as unfit to hold office if he leaves is not only reckless but should
not have been said at this volatile stage. If all this is not managed
carefully, the country’s delicate transition will result in chaos,” Biti
warned then.
“The current environment is volatile and contains many ingredients for a
civil war. The toxic hate speech that is being exchanged every day across
the Zanu PF factions is at the same level with that witnessed before the
genocide in Rwanda.
“The fact that the Lacoste faction includes the military makes it
dangerous for Mugabe to try and impose his wife in a process which must
normally be determined by a democratic election. Mugabe has always
deprived the people of Zimbabwe their right to freely choose,” Biti added.
Moyo on Thursday exposed the extent to which Zanu PF is being devoured by
its deepening infighting, confirming what the Daily News has been writing
about accurately for more than two years, that the ruling party had now
split into two distinctive camps.
“There are two parties in Zanu PF, the first is successionists who are a
minority in the ruling party but who are very vocal and now openly say
they are backing (Vice President Emmerson) Mnangagwa to succeed … Mugabe
and they would like to see this happening before the next elections and
they would like to see the vice president as the party candidate.
“The loyalists are the silent majority who support…Mugabe to serve his
full term in accordance with the Constitution,” said Moyo.
Yesterday, opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai’s MDC said it was now even
more concerned by Zanu PF’s worsening infighting, which it said needed to
be checked urgently.
“As the country’s largest and most popular political party, we are very
concerned by the threat to national security that is posed by the deadly
factional fights that are taking place within the collapsing Zanu PF
regime.
“Mugabe should have sorted out the succession politics in his crumbling
party several years ago. Now, he has left it too late. Things are falling
apart within the Zanu PF regime and the centre can no longer hold,” MDC
spokesperson Obert Gutu said.
“It’s now dog eat dog in the collapsing Zanu PF dictatorship. It is
actually possible that the country will degenerate into a very bloody
civil war if the factionalism that is tearing the regime apart is not
attended to urgently.
“Both factions have got access to arms of war and the security of the
state is put in grave danger should the factional fighting boil over into
a physical confrontation which is quite possible,” Gutu warned.
Since the images of Mnangagwa holding a coffee mug written (I Am The Boss)
emerged in the public domain in January, the G40 faction has been
interpreting this as the VP’s open statement that he has unbridled
presidential ambitions.
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
doing everything possible to torpedo Mnangagwa’s mooted presidential
ambitions.
Mugabe has studiously refused to name a successor, arguing that his party
should rather follow what he sees as a more democratic process, to manage
his succession via a congress.
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