ACTING President Phelekezela Mphoko, and Vice-President
Emmerson Mnangagwa openly traded barbs, as 93-year-old President Robert
Mugabe’s succession wars reached a tipping point yesterday.
Mphoko, in a hard-hitting statement released on Tuesday
night, accused Mnangagwa of undermining Mugabe’s authority and trying to
destabilise the country by fanning ethnic tensions for political expediency.
But Mnangagwa immediately shot back at Mphoko yesterday,
declaring his counterpart was neither qualified nor competent to comment on his
medical reports, since he was neither a doctor nor his employer.
In his statement, Mphoko warned Mnangagwa against
undermining Mugabe by claiming that he was poisoned at the Gwanda rally in
August, when his doctors had dismissed the poisoning claim when they met the
President.
“It must be said that Mnangagwa’s statement that he was
poisoned, when his medical doctor has authoritatively said he was not, is
disappointing,” Mphoko said.
“There’s now little doubt, if there ever was any, that
there appears to be an agenda to undermine the authority of President Mugabe
and to destabilise the country by using lies to fan ethnic tensions for
political purposes.
“This must stop and do so sooner rather than later.”
Mphoko’s statement came after ZBC ran a story on
Mnangagwa’s Gutu rally address.
“Reference is made to a ZBC report that Vice-President
Emmerson Mnangagwa has said for the first time in public that he was poisoned
in Gwanda on August 12, 2017; the day of President Mugabe’s youth interface
rally in Matabeleland South,” Mphoko wrote.
“Contrary to his statement, his medical doctor, while
briefing President Robert Mugabe in the presence of Mnangagwa, confirmed that
Vice-President Mnangagwa was not poisoned.”
Mphoko’s uncharacteristic statement followed Mnangagwa’s
claims at the weekend that he was poisoned at the Zanu PF Gwanda youth
interface rally, which led to his airlifting to South Africa for medical
attention.
Mnangagwa was addressing party supporters at the memorial
service of the late national heroine, Shuvai Mahofa, on Saturday.
Mahofa’s family has openly claimed that the late Masvingo
Provincial Affairs minister was poisoned in Victoria Falls at the Zanu PF
conference in December 2015.
Mnangagwa, in a terse response, said Mphoko had no
authority to comment on his health issues.
“If that statement is his, he is neither competent nor
privileged to comment on my health because he is neither my doctor nor my
employer.
“Therefore, there is no need to dignify the statement with
a response,” he said.
Mnangagwa’s claims he was poisoned where seen as
contradicting what Mugabe told party supporters at a Midlands rally weeks after
the former returned from South Africa, where he was treated after being
airlifted from the Gwanda rally.
Initially, Mphoko’s statement was not on a government
letterhead, but later, officials from the Vice-President said a new letter had
been drafted and was ready for collection.
“Yes, it is a legitimate statement,” Tabetha
Kanengoni-Malinga, the Minister of State in Mphoko’s office, said, before
revealing that the original one was prepared in a “hurried manner”.
Mphoko alleged in his statement that Mnangagwa and Mugabe
had publicly ruled out that the Vice-President had been poisoned, something
Information minister Christopher Mushohwe corroborated.
“Vice-President Mnangagwa’s Gutu claim that he was poisoned
in Gwanda on August 12, 2017 is surprising in the light of the public record on
the matter.
“No one else other than Mnangagwa himself confirmed this
position at the last Zanu PF central committee meeting held on September 8,
2017, where he emphatically said he was not poisoned.
“This was after he made the same disclosure to the
politburo the previous day,” Mphoko said.
“In view of the above, Mnangagwa’s latest claim that he was
poisoned in Gwanda cannot go unchallenged not least because everyone can see
that it is a calculated afterthought to challenge President Mugabe’s public
account that Mnangagwa’s medical doctor ruled out poisoning, as the cause of
Mnangagwa’s traumatising vomiting and diarrhoea in Gwanda.”
Mnangagwa’s close relative said it was shocking that Mphoko
had feigned serious lack of understanding of simple English.
“Mnangagwa was poisoned, it was not food poisoning. There
was a foreign substance injected into his food, the food itself was not stale
and it was not toxins from the food, this is what President Mugabe said in
Gweru, it cannot be Mnangagwa’s fault that Mphoko cannot understand English,”
the family member said.
Mugabe, in his public statement, disclosed that Mnangagwa
had not eaten stale food and dismissed claims his deputy had been poisoned by
Defence minister Sydney Sekeramayi and Health minister David Parirenyatwa as
alleged by the Vice-President’s ally, Energy Mutodi. Newsday
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