President Robert Mugabe’s nephew, Patrick Zhuwao has alleged that his friend in exile Saviour Kasukuwere is now back in Zimbabwe to lead the Mugabe backed opposition party, NFP.

Zhuwao is however concerned that Kasukuwere might actually be double crossing them by making secret deals with Mnangagwa’s military backed government so they can use him to torpedo the NFP project in exchange for his security.

On Sunday we reported that Mugabe is looking for a younger man to lead NFP against the rising influence of Chamisa and Mnangagwa, now it appears Kasukuwere could be announced as new party president if Zhuwao’s statement is correct.

Below is Zhuwao’s text warning that Kasukuwere leadership is victory for the military and Mnangagwa’s government:

 Reports are coming through that the military Junta is incubating the establishment of a copy-cat to the National Patriotic Front (NPF) to be called the ZNPF in an effort to derail the real NPF. The reports indicate that this copy-cat WPF junta project will seek to hijack the membership of the real NPF and subsume them under the leadership of Saviour Kasukuwere. Kasukuwere has been reported at some meetings of the real NPF as either having arrived in Zimbabwe or as being on the verge of landing in Zimbabwe in an effort to tie his supposed leadership of the copy-cat ZNPF junta project with the real NPF.
 This ZBR is being written for the express purpose of putting on the record that I, as Patrick Zhuwao, am not part of Kasukuwere’s current political shenanigans and manoeuvring. To be more specific, I do not support nor subscribe to the notion that Kasukuwere should lead the real NPF. Having politically interacted with Kasukuwere since joining the ZANU PF Youth League’s National Executive over one and a half decades ago, I am not convinced that he is an appropriate person to lead the real NPF.

Furthermore, the founders of the NPF, of which Kasukuwere is not one, have categorically stated that Professor Jonathan Moyo, Honourable Saviour Kasukuwere and Honourable Patrick Zhuwao should not form part of the founding leadership of NPF. As a co-founder of NPF, I fully associate myself with that position and have indicated as much in previous instalments of the ZBR and privately to Kasukuwere himself.

Some of the reasons for my taking such a position include the fact that Kasukuwere has been actively discouraging efforts towards the establishment of the real NPF up to a point where I stopped engaging him on the progress of that endeavour. Kasukuwere’s interactions with the military junta at its highest levels have also made it inconceivable for him to play a significant role in the real NPF, let alone lead it, since the real NPF was established to dismantle the junta.

Kasukuwere’s dogged determination to return to a Zimbabwe that is under the yoke of the military junta has also left me questioning his motives. The only way in which someone walks into a dangerously fatally situation is if they have been given assurances for their safety. Given the threat that the real NPF poses to the military junta, it is conceivable that such a guarantee can only have been secured by way of a commitment to derail the real NPF. This is why I am taking seriously the reports of a copy-cat ZNPF under the leadership of Kasukuwere as a junta project to derail the real NPF.

As a co-founder of the real NPF, it is important that I articulate my position publicly to all Zimbabweans so that it is abundantly clear that the real NPF can NEVER be a junta project. I will never support the copy-cat ZNPF junta project because its principle objective is to derail the efforts of the real NPF towards dismantling the military junta in control of Zimbabwe.

The real NPF was formed, partly, to provide a political home for those orphaned by the military takeover of ZANU PF and not as a means for the self–aggrandisement of those with unbridled political ambitions. The real NPF stands for the broad based socio-economic transformation of all Zimbabweans in an inclusive and collective manner in accordance to the maxim encapsulated in the slogan: Iwe neni tine basa. Umsebenzi loUmkhulu

Asante Sana.