Some forgotten Zanu PF stalwarts had their political careers resurrected at the ruling party’s just ended congress after spending years in the cold following the creation of a council of elders and appointments into the central committee by President Emmerson Mnangagwa.
The Zanu PF congress ended in Harare yesterday after
80-year-old Mnangagwa was endorsed as the ruling party’s candidate for next
year’s presidential elections.
His wife Auxillia Mnangagwa also officially became a member
of the central committee following in the footsteps of former first lady Grace
Mugabe.
Grace Mugabe rose to become a politburo member and tried to
influence the succession of her late husband Robert Mugabe, which many analysts
believe precipitated the 2017 coup that toppled the octogenarian.
Mnangagwa succeeded Mugabe with promises to modernise both
the ruling party and the country, but he is increasingly being compared to his
authoritarian predecessor.
Former ministers Francis Nhema and Nicholas Goche also made
a comeback after some years on the sidelines.
The former ministers found themselves in political
wilderness following the removal of Mugabe from office in November 2017.
Goche was fired for hobnobbing with former vice-president
Joice Mujuru in 2013 and has not held a senior position since then.
Former Primary and Secondary Education minister Lazarus
Dokora and ex-Finance deputy minister Terrence Mukupe also made a comeback into
the central committee.
Dokora was booted out in 2018.
Other members who made it into the central committee
include party secretary for legal affairs Paul Mangwana, Matabeleland South
Provincial Affairs minister Abednico Ncube and former Harare Provincial Affairs
minister Miriam Chikukwa, who were appointed into the central committee by
Mnangagwa.
Businessman James Makamba, Edgar Mbwembwe and lawyer
Jonathan Samkange also made the list.
Mnangagwa also extended an olive branch to other former
senior Zanu PF members to re-join the former liberation movement.
“Party structures must never block people from joining and
re-joining the party for personal interests,” he said in his closing remarks
yesterday.
Party structures and leadership at every level must resist
the temptation to close any individuals or group of persons from coming into
Zanu PF on the basis of preferences or even preservation of a few, or that if
he enters he will take my position.
“Rejecting others is not the Zanu PF way. Instead our
structures must make our membership base stronger and broader by accepting more
and more people into the party.”
He added: “Zanu PF is for the founders, dead and alive, the
current generation and the coming generation.
“It was handed to us alive and we must also hand it over
alive.
“The Chitepo School of Ideology must continue imparting
ideology to all party members.
“You are more important in the party if you have ideology
than if you have money.”
Mnangagwa also appointed the leader of Zanu (Ndonga) Wilson
Khumbula into the all-powerful Zanu PF central committee as he eyes the
Chipinge vote in the 2023 elections.
Zanu (Ndonga), formed by the late Ndabaningi Sithole after
he was forced out of Zanu PF, draws its support from largely the Ndau populated
district of Chipinge where Zanu PF has struggled to make inroads for years.
Sithole was the founding president of Zimbabwe African
National Union (Zanu) in 1963.
He was later deposed in a palace coup engineered by Mugabe
who accused him of denouncing the liberation struggle during a court trial in
1975.
In August, Mnangagwa posthumously conferred national hero
status on Sithole to pacify the Chipinge electorate and win votes.
A gala to celebrate Sithole is also on the cards.
The wife of the late Zanla guerrilla army commander Josiah
Tongogara, Angeline is also now a member of the central committee.
Zanla was the military wing of Zanu during the armed
struggle. Standard
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