FORMER MDC Alliance deputy treasurer-general Lillian Timveos, who recently defected to Zanu PF, has confirmed long-held fears that the ruling party was plotting to decimate the opposition party ahead of the 2023 elections after she claimed at the weekend that President Emmerson Mnangagwa, who she described as “my father”, had given her a “special task”.
The former MDC Alliance top executive was unveiled together
with former MDC-T secretary for local government, Blessing Chebundo at State
House in Harare recently.
“I saw it fit to come to Zanu PF. It doesn’t make sense
that the President (Mnangagwa) is from here (Zvishavane) and yet he has never
won in this area,” said Timveos, a former member of the late MDC founder Morgan
Tsvangirai’s infamous “kitchen Cabinet”.
“That must change in 2023. Don’t be afraid that I am here
for positions. My father, the President, gave me a task to do, so don’t be
afraid that I am here for positions. I am here to work for the party, don’t
worry,” she told Zanu PF supporters in Zvishavane on Saturday.
Timveos, however, could not disclose the nature of the task
given to her, but Zanu PF sources said she had been tasked to divulge
opposition party secrets and lure more top MDC Alliance officials to the ruling
party ahead of the 2023 elections.
The former MDC Alliance Zvishavane senator, who until
recently was part of Nelson Chamisa’s inner circle, added: “I say he
(Mnangagwa) is the people’s President because of the way I was welcomed in Zanu
PF. You all know me and I am one of the people who thought Zanu PF was bad and
I was very afraid, but it only took phone call, phone call after phone call for
me to be where I am today. I can’t say much, but there are people I came with
from the MDC Alliance.”
Her remarks came shortly after former MDC Alliance Masvingo
Central MP Jeffreyson Chitando last week claimed that Zanu PF was planning to
launch Operation Armageddon that would see it taking over service delivery
tasks in all urban areas from the MDC Alliance councils as part of efforts to
lure votes.
Zanu PF national commissar Victor Matemadanda last week
disclosed that they were targeting over five million votes for Mnangagwa in
2023.
This, he said, would be achieved by fishing from the MDC
Alliance pond, whose leader Chamisa got over 2,1 million votes against the Zanu
PF leader’s 2,4 million in the 2018 presidential poll.
Matemadanda said they were expecting more defections from
MDC Alliance in the coming few days.
“At that rate, we will reach 2023 with only five people or no one from the MDC Alliance. We are mobilising people even from MDC Alliance and all their formations, Mthwakazi and other parties,” Matemadanda told NewsDay.
Zanu PF’s Operation Armageddon, according to Chitando, would see line ministries superintend over key services such as waste collection and water distribution in urban centres to portray the opposition as failures.
“Zanu PF is in panic mode as the urban voter population is
rapidly increasing, while the rural population is drastically decreasing,”
Chitando told NewsDay.
“Roads, housing, sewage, refuse collections, education and health will be taken from city councils and placed under line ministries,” he said.
Chitando further alleged that to ensure that the operation
succeeded, the Zanu PF plan was that Mnangagwa and various high-ranking
officials would literally camp in urban areas where they would officially
commission various projects in a bid to lure urban voters.
“Zanu PF is coming to cities armed with Zinara (Zimbabwe National Road Administration)’s millions of dollars to repair roads and then they will blame MDC Alliance councillors for failing to maintain the roads,” Chitando said.
But Zanu PF provincial political commissar for Masvingo
Jevas Masosota rubbished Chitando’s assertions saying: “He is just
hallucinating. It’s not Zanu PF that neglected service delivery for
decades. Since the MDC took over
councils in 2000 they proved that they were only good in talking. They only got into councils for
self-aggrandisement — nothing else,” Masosota said.
MDC Alliance officials said they were aware of the ruling
party’s machinations to destabilise the opposition party through blackmail and
“sponsored defections”.
“Zanu PF is desperate and is using all sorts of tactics to
derail the people’s project, but this will not work. They have tried everything
they can to destroy us, but our power rests in the people not in those
renegades they are parading as defectors. Zanu PF has nothing to offer the
people, hence they are engaging in these archaic tactics,” MDC Alliance deputy
spokesperson Clifford Hlatywayo said. Newsday
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