Several Zanu PF heavyweights are living on borrowed time as the party hurtles towards a potentially divisive congress later this year amid revelations that many will lose their influential positions in the central committee.
President Emmmerson Mnangagwa is seen as being eager to
consolidate his position in the ruling party ahead of the 2023 elections.
Mnangagwa is said to be facing growing opposition within
Zanu PF because of his perceived failure to solve an economic crisis that began
under the watch of his mentor, the late Robert Mugabe.
The Zanu PF congress will be held in October and there is
talk within the ruling party corridors that Vice-President Constantino
Chiwenga, who led the 2017 coup that toppled Mugabe and installed the now
79-year-old president might challenge his boss.
Mnangagwa has already ensured that the women and youth
leagues, which held their elective conferences recently, are captured by his
allies and the central committee is the next on his radar, insiders said.
They said those perceived to be on Chiwenga’s side face the
big risk of losing their positions in elections for the central committee in
the coming weeks.
The central committee, which meets once in three months is
the principal organ of the congress and consists of 230 members drawn from the
country’s 10 provinces.
John Paradza was appointed as the party’s new deputy
secretary for youth affairs while Angeline Masuku was elected as the deputy
secretary for women’s affairs. Mabel Chinomona retained her position as the
secretary for women’s affairs.
Paradza, Masuku and Chinomona are viewed as staunch
Mnangagwa allies.
There are indications that the factions within the ruling
party are already plotting against each other and there is a growing push by
the youth to have a bigger say in the running of the party’s affairs.
Zanu PF youth leader Tendai Chiwetu told youths in the
capital recently that some bigwigs would
lose their central committee positions for allegedly working against Mnangagwa.
“We have party bigwigs, who are going to lose their central
committee elections because they have not been supporting President Emmerson
Mnangagwa,” Chiwetu said.
In Manicaland, there are indications that former Finance
minister Patrick Chinamasa and ex-Agriculture minister Joseph Made are some of
the Mugabe era heavyweights facing the axe.
“We have people like Chinamasa and Made who might not
retain their positions as central committee members because they are not on the
ground, they are just technocrats,” said a top Zanu PF official in Manicaland.
“We have several bigwigs, who are going to lose their
positions and former Local government deputy minister Christopher Chingosho is
also on the spotlight.”
Chinamasa in 2018 lost the Makoni Central parliamentary
seat to MDC Alliance’s David Tekeshe.
Zanu PF spokesperson Christopher Mutsvangwa could not be
reached for comment on alleged divisions
in the party that are said to be widening ahead of the central committee
elections
The just-ended Zanu PF youth league conference created new
factional fissures, which have since seen its leadership resorting to scare
tactics in an attempt to put the house in order.
A camp opposed to Zanu PF Mashonaland West youth
chairperson, Tapiwa Masenda was recently circulating a vote of no confidence
petition to have him removed from the post for allegedly making unilateral
co-options of members into the provincial executive organ and nepotism.
Twenty six out of possibly 40 provincial youth executive
members had signed the petition by last week.
Mnangagwa in May this year while addressing supporters in
Glen View admitted that the ruling party was being ripped apart by deep-rooted
divisions ahead of the 2023 general elections.
The infighting in the ruling party has become so glaring to
an extent that some party youth members have been calling to order top leadership
in public platforms.
Mnangagwa blasted some individuals who he alleged were
using money to get positions in the party. Standard
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