Well-placed sources
told the Daily News On Sunday yesterday that Mnangagwa had threatened to
jettison the fingered officials from the ruling party while addressing a Zanu
PF politburo meeting in Harare — after he learnt that they were among the
people creating havoc within the former liberation movement ahead of its
district co-ordinating committee (DCC) elections now slated for next weekend.
Acting Zanu PF spokesperson, Patrick Chinamasa, confirmed
to the Daily News On Sunday that Mnangagwa had indeed had a go at land barons in the party,
warning them against fomenting chaos in the former liberation movement.
This comes amid concerns that Zanu PF is slowly drifting
towards the climate that prevailed in the last few years in power of the late former president Robert
Mugabe — which was marked by debilitating factionalism and tribalism.
“The president warned that politburo members who are
implicated in land baron shenanigans must expect what is due to them.
“He said the law will take its course without fear or
favour. It is important that in re-organising the party, we must be on the
forefront explaining things (grabbing land and creating havoc in the party) …
because what was done was wrong,” Chinamasa said.
The party insiders who spoke to the Daily News On Sunday
said Mnangagwa had told his lieutenants that the party would investigate all
the officials using illegally acquired land proceeds as campaign tools in the
impending DCC elections, with a view to expelling them from the party.
“The president also said that there are some in the
politburo who are not necessarily land barons, but who have links to them and
tend to benefit from their land deals.
“He said those people are using the same money to destroy
the party by financing their preferred candidates ahead of the DCC elections.
“He said, in very unambiguous terms, that he won’t hesitate
to fire anyone caught on the wrong side of the law,” one of the insiders told the Daily News On Sunday.
Last week, Mnangagwa also openly threatened to expel some
party bigwigs that he accused of abusing his name and dividing Zanu PF.
In his address to the same politburo, he said DCC elections
were meant to unite the party, not divide it. “The DCC structures are a system
to strengthen party coordination, as well as a useful vehicle to entrench party
constitutionalism, internal democracy and grassroot mobilisation.
“More importantly, once established, DCCs should coordinate
and unify our party through constant interaction with political districts, as
we journey towards Vision 2030,” he said.
“Our meeting today should remind us that we are a people’s
party with the responsibility to advance the emancipation and economic empowerment
of our people.
“The need to engrain the liberation and revolutionary
history, ethos and value systems in all our activities is equally important. “The
party constitution requires members to be loyal, patriotic and to promote peace
and unity. “Under the Second Republic, our DNA entails that we serve our people
whole-heartedly and promote inclusive development which leaves no one, and no
place behind,” Mnangagwa said further.
Meanwhile, some party insiders also claimed that during
last week’s meeting, the politburo could not reach a consensus on how to
proceed with the DCC elections — with some officials apparently recommending
that the elections be held this year to avoid continuous infighting, while
others wanted the complaints that had been raised by aspiring candidates to be dealt with
first.
“The debate was robust, with the commissariat and security
departments insisting on having early elections, possibly before the end of the
year — as the party cannot afford to go on fighting like what is currently
happening , ” one of the insiders said.
“They argued that the longer the candidates remained on the
ground campaigning, the more the fights in the party would escalate — hence
there is a real need to have people taking their positions after elections, so
that they work on unifying the party,”
another insider added.
On Friday, Zanu PF secretary for administration Obert Mpofu
announced that the DCC elections would be held on December 5 and 6. This comes
as the run-up to the re-instated and highlydivisive DCC elections has been sullied by vicious infighting, which has seen
some bigwigs being accused of fanning party chaos.
The countdown to the DCC elections had also been marred by
allegations of dirty money changing hands — amid unproven claims that remnants
of the party’s vanquished Generation 40 (G40) faction were burning the midnight
oil to influence the outcome of the internal polls, in an alleged bid to
engineer their group’s political comeback.
The DCC structures elect Zanu PF’s 10 provincial executives
— where the party and Mnangagwa draw members of the central committee and the politburo from.
The party’s DCCs were disbanded in 2012 after they were deemed to be fanning
factionalism during Mnangagwa and former vice president Joice Mujuru’s battles
to succeed Mugabe. Daily News
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