Source: Zanu PF women’s league hits campaign trail – DailyNews Live
Mugove Tafirenyika 2 February 2017
HARARE – Zanu PF women’s league has said it will soon meet to finalise a
planned campaign to mobilise support for 92-year-old President Robert
Mugabe ahead of the 2018 elections, a senior official has said.
The league’s secretary for finance, Sarah Mahoka, told the Daily News that
now that President Robert Mugabe’s wife, Grace – leader of the women’s
wing – is back from a month-long annual holiday, they can “meet as
national executive to map the way forward”.
“…she (Grace) will rest a while before we come together as the national
executive, probably next week or the other, to also allow provinces to
conclude their on-going provincial coordinating committee meetings
countrywide,” the First Lady’s ally said.
“Our focus this year is to make sure that we mobilise our supporters to
rally behind…Mugabe, who is our candidate for the elections next year,”
Mahoka said.
“We will mobilise all women to come forth and defend our president,” she
added.
While Mahoka declined to give details of other important programmes the
women’s league will be pursuing, the outspoken Hurungwe East legislator
told the Daily News in a separate interview that they will also emphasise
their desire to regain one of the ruling party’s two vice president posts
by pressing for constitutional changes to that effect.
She said following complaints by Mugabe over non-implementation of Zanu PF
conference resolutions, the women’s league is going to vigorously pursue
all its resolutions including the one calling for the re-introduction of a
woman vice president that was adopted in 2015.
“The president made it clear that he was not happy with a situation where
the party makes resolutions that are not implemented, Amai (Grace) said we
should start implementing all our resolutions now by making sure that the
women’s quota clause is incorporated in the party constitution,” Mahoka
said.
The league, which was the only organ given the chance to outline its own
resolutions to the Masvingo conference, made the issue of representation
in the presidium, consisting of the party’s president and his two
deputies, very clear.
Its deputy secretary, Eunice Sandi-Moyo, told the December 2016 Zanu PF
conference: “We are concerned with lack of implementation of party
resolutions made in 2015 in Victoria Falls.”
“We made it clear that we wanted the constitution to be changed to allow
an earlier provision that one of the two VPs should be a woman. This has
not been implemented.”
Observers say the move by the women’s league is aimed at ousting Vice
President Emmerson Mnangagwa, who they do not want to succeed Mugabe.
Zanu PF is divided along factional lines, with the Mnangagwa faction
fighting a war of attrition with the rival G40 faction that is believed to
have coalesced around Mugabe’s wife.
COMMENTS
In a country in crisis, neither Grace Mugabe nor Mnangagwa should be allowed to stand for President. These parasites prey on the body politic. Grace has no skills apart from being the wife of Moonbat, a prolific spendthrift and an incompetent business woman. Mnangagwa is an old, vicious, war criminal with the blood of countless Zimbabweans and Congolese on his hands. He has been equally responsible for the destruction of the Zimbabwe economy and has presided over the devastation of its citizens. He should be in front of the ICC at The Hague.