Mugabe’s pre-emptive strike against deputy

via Mugabe’s pre-emptive strike against deputy 19 August 2014

PUBLISHER and academic, Ibbo Mandaza, has said President Robert Mugabe staged a pre-emptive coup on potential successors by accepting nomination by a group of Zanu PF women as the party’s sole candidate for the 2018 presidential polls.

In its resolutions, the Zanu PF women’s league which met in Harare for its sixth congress recently, vowed support for the veteran leader, who would be 94 when the country goes for the next polls.

Mugabe obliged in his keynote address during the closing ceremony on Friday, thanking the women’s league for keeping confidence in his leadership.

“Ndinoda kukutendai zvikuru neresolution yamapasisa, the resolution whereby you state that l should be the sole candidate wenyu for the presidency,” he said.

Mugabe also thanked the Zanu PF women’s organ for nominating his 49-year -old wife, Grace, a political novice, to lead the women’s league.

“I want to thank you for that and also for the First Lady, perhaps we will give her a little chance to respond, handingamutenderi ini aiwa ndongozvitendera ini zvemuselfka, but l can assure you we will continue to do our best…”

But Mandaza, once an ally of the Zimbabwean leader, said Tuesday President Mugabe has all but deterred party stalwarts who have squabbled publicly for his job.

“When he accepts nomination that he is going to be the sole candidate of the party for 2018, it’s all about himself regardless of the political and economic consequences of Zimbabwe,” Mandaza told NewZimbabwe.com in an exclusive interview.

“Every time Mugabe is asked about a successor, not once has he ever said there was a vice-president even though this is quite implicit in the party constitution and the national constitution.

“Mugabe wants to die in office … what he is saying basically is that Joice Mujuru ‘you have no chance’. That is the implication. In fact, he has pre-empted congress. The question is why even go to congress? Even the women went beyond congress. They went four years ahead.”

The former permanent secretary accused Mugabe of deliberately fanning the current fissures within his party to cement his ambitious plans to become life president of Zanu PF and consequently, the country.

Foreign Affairs Deputy Minister Christopher Mutsvangwa last weekend launched an uncharacteristic attack on Joice Mujuru for her perceived presidential ambitions.

Mutsvangwa, an ally to justice minister and faction leader Emmerson Mnangagwa, went to the extent of dismantling the age-old narrative that Mujuru once brought down a fighter helicopter sent by the enemy to attack liberation war fighters.

Mandaza had an explanation for this: “It’s all part of the game … the whole idea is meant to stop Joice or to confirm Bob as life President.

“It’s now a question of whether Mutsvangwa would have written the same on Saturday if he knew that Mugabe was going to accept the 2018 resolution.”