FORMER Cabinet minister and liberation struggle stalwart,
Rugare Gumbo, fears that President Emmerson Mnangagwa is being sabotaged by his
senior Zanu PF colleagues as he toils to fix the country’s myriad challenges.
Gumbo — who was controversially fired from the ruling party
in the run-up to Zanu PF’s sham 2014 congress at the height of its factional,
tribal and succession wars — reiterated in an interview with the Daily News at
the weekend that dialogue was the best way out for crisis-ridden Zimbabwe.
At the same time, expelled former Zanu PF youth leader
Godfrey Tsenengamu also agreed that Mnangagwa was being sabotaged — adding that
he now needed to go back to the drawing board and to come up with a “winning”
Cabinet line-up made up of ministers who understood and supported his vision
for the country.
All this comes as Zimbabwe is experiencing its worst
economic crisis in a decade, which has triggered anger and anxiety among
long-suffering ordinary people.
Amid the widening fissures in the ruling party, Gumbo told
the Daily News yesterday that Mnangagwa was likely being sabotaged within Zanu
PF as he battles Zimbabwe’s deepening political and economic crises.
“He (Mnangagwa) must be aware of being sabotaged from
within, and I think this is now clearly happening in Zanu PF.
“In politics, those things happen. But the president must
be a visionary leader with good strategies to be able to deal with all these
problems.
“As I also always say, dialogue is the only way forward for
this country. The 2023 elections are very far because people are suffering. You
cannot solve these problems through propaganda,” the forthright Gumbo said.
“The country is for everyone, from trade unions to churches
and other stakeholders. People just need to sit down and talk.
“We went to war to make sure that all Zimbabweans have a
good life and that they are happy all the time. It is important for Zanu PF to
implement political and economic reforms.
“They must do this not for themselves, but for the good of
the country. The future of the party will not be good if they fail to implement
the much needed reforms,” the fearless Gumbo added.
The liberation war icon was sent packing from Zanu PF in
2014, together with the party’s then secretary for administration Didymus
Mutasa and former vice president Joice Mujuru, at the height of the party’s
deadly factional, tribal and succession wars — on untested allegations of
wanting to topple the late former president Robert Mugabe from power.
Recently, Zanu PF invited Gumbo for re-admission into the
former liberation movement which he helped to form with the likes of Ndabaningi
Sithole and Enos Nkala, who are all late.
Gumbo is also the only surviving member of the liberation
war council that was known as Dare reChimurenga.
Meanwhile, Tsenengamu also told the Daily News yesterday
that Mnangagwa was being sabotaged from inside Zanu PF — which demanded that he
re-strategised his political trajectory.
“He is being sabotaged by his own comrades who are bitter
for various reasons and also from remnants of the old dispensation.
“But his biggest challenge has been that of surrounding
himself with people who have no appreciation of his vision.
“He picked people from nowhere and entrusted them with key
positions, and these people are letting him down,” Tsenengamu told the Daily
News.
“The other challenge is that he surrounded himself with
people who can’t tell him the truth, and this is working against him.
“The majority of the people who rushed to surround him are
nothing but mere opportunists and extortionists who are busy lining their
pockets and doing everything possible to tarnish his name,” Tsenengamu also let
rip.
“It is important that the president lays the foundation for
a better society in which he will be able to live even after his time as
president.
“In whatever he is doing today, he must think about
tomorrow,” he told the Daily News further.
Since his expulsion from Zanu PF over allegations of
corruption that he made against some of the ruling party’s bigwigs, Tsenengamu
has become an arch critic of Mnangagwa and his government.
He was among several opposition and pro-democracy activists
who were mobilising for the July 31 anti-government protests, which they said
were necessary to expose rampant public sector corruption.
Yesterday, Tsenengamu also reminded Mnangagwa how he had been
cut loose by Mugabe and ended up fleeing the country fearing for his life.
“The laws and systems he (Mnangagwa) is putting in place
must not only be good for him when he is in power.
“I think he must quickly appreciate this just as he
experienced the same in 2017 when the whole Mugabe system went against him and
he had to run away from Zimbabwe and seek refuge in a foreign land.
“Mugabe died a bitter man because the system he used for 37
years to harass others turned against him and he had to vote against it.
“The same way he (Mnangagwa) wants to be treated tomorrow
when he leaves office is how he must treat others today,” Tsenengamu also told
the Daily News.
After his dramatic fall from power in November 2017, on the
back of a popular military coup, Mugabe and his erratic wife Grace did not hide
their bitterness with Mnangagwa and Zanu PF.
On the eve of the 2018 national elections, the late
strongman threw the cat among the pigeons when he publicly endorsed MDC
Alliance leader Nelson Chamisa to lead Zimbabwe — before telling the nation
that he would never vote for Mnangagwa and Zanu PF.
Mugabe resigned from office in November 2017, a few hours
after Parliament had initiated proceedings to impeach him — after he had
refused to leave office during eight tense days that began with the military
intervening in the governance of the country.
The operation also saw him and Grace being placed under
house arrest, while several Cabinet ministers linked to Zanu PF’s Generation 40
faction — which had coalesced around the Mugabes — were also targeted.
The annihilated G40 was, before the military intervention,
locked in a bitter war with Mnangagwa and his supporters for control of both
Zanu PF and the country. Daily News
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