TEMPERS flared at an explosive caucus meeting for Zanu PF
members of parliament last week on Wednesday when the ruling party legislators
converged to discuss last week’s deadly civil unrest.
The meeting, coming at a time when Zimbabwe was rocked by
street protests and a bloody military crackdown, had been called mainly to
discuss the riots that took place after President Emmerson Mnangagwa raised the
price of fuel by 150%.
The party wanted the MPs to have a common position on the
state of affairs in the country. MPs who attended the meeting told the Zimbabwe
Independent in off-the-record briefings that legislators strongly disagreed on
how to approach the riots.
Some of the youthful MPs wanted an eye-for-an-eye. They
wanted to mobilise the party youths to counter the attacks. However, some of
the legislators felt that the convenors of the meeting, Zanu PF chief whip
Pupurai Togarepi and Justice minister Ziyambi Ziyambi, should give them the
direction on how to proceed.
In the emotive debate that ensued, some of the more radical
MPs said the party should give them the greenlight to take on protesters as
they believed that their Zanu PF marked vehicles were prime targets in the
volatile situation.
“Most of us warmed up to the idea that we should take the
rioters head-on since they were targeting our cars. However, they were
restrained by Ziyambi and Togarepi who said this would lead to an open civilian
confrontation which would worsen the situation,” an MP who attended the meeting
said.
Togarepi apparently pressed the wrong button when he
suggested that the meeting should stop deliberating on the thorny issue because
there was an instruction from Mnangagwa not to discuss the violence.
This did not go down well with some of the MPs,
particularly the Gokwe-Central and Gokwe-Nembudziya legislators Victor
Matemadanda and Justice Mayor Wadyajena respectively.
“Togarepi threatened MPs by telling us that we must not
discuss current events as they are since he had been given parameters by the
party’s leadership.
MPs became very angry. Matemadanda asked Togarepi to
explain why he had called the meeting when he did not want to tell the truth.
He (Matemadanda) was asked to sit down and was denied the right to speak
because he is a minister. He then angrily tried to walk out, only to be
restrained by some of the MPs,” another MP said.
As soon as Matemadanda sat, sources said, Wadyajena stood
up and confronted Togarepi, accusing him of lying about the so-called gag
order.
“Wadyajena told Togarepi that he should not lie to the MPs
that Mnangagwa gagged us, saying he knew the President very well. He said if
anything, the President would want to be given accurate information about
what’s happening on the ground obtaining from the grassroots. He insisted
(Mnangagwa) would never want us to mislead him by sugar-coating or telling
outright falsehoods. Wadyajena also said if we are genuine about solving
issues, we must look each other straight in the eye and tell the plain truth,”
the MP said.
Wadyajena reportedly ended his speech by saying: “We don’t
want H.E (Mnangagwa) to go the (former president Robert) Mugabe route of having
self-serving, devious and questionable advisors and gatekeepers who prevent him
from receiving true information or deliberately mislead him to serve their own
interests.”
Another legislator said: “We asked Togarepi and Ziyambi who
were co-chairing the meeting why they the called us when they did not want us
to discuss the issues. It was a no-holds-barred meeting to strategise against
protesters. They wanted to gauge the magnitude of the disturbances. We then
asked them why they were asking for solutions from us without telling us what
they had planned as leaders.”
Contacted for comment, Togarepi said: “I do not discuss
internal party issues with the press.” Zimbabwe Independent
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