Mnangagwa’s days are now numbered, Grace Mugabe gets closer

A tension-filled extraordinary congress is in the offering for the ruling party as the influential Zanu-PF Women’s League has started rallying its structures across the country to lend support behind First Lady Grace Mugabe as the sole beneficiary of a constitutional amendment seeking to create space for a female vice president.

The Women’s assembly is having consultative meetings in all the 10 provinces to amplify its demands for gender parity to be main streamed at the vice president level of Zanu-PF.

The quota was removed in 2015’s congress and now the Women’s League is pushing to have the constitution amended with Grace being rallied for the vice-president post.

Zanu-PF’s Women’s League national secretary for administration, Letina Undenge said as women, they wanted the ruling party’s constitution amended.

“We have said this over the past two years. We want the quota system so that one of the vice presidents should be a woman. We said this before and we will continue saying it because we want a woman to be in the Presidium. This system is not only in Zimbabwe, but it is there all over the world. If you look at South Africa, they have this system. We want women to be empowered. Women also want powerful positions; positions in decision-making. People should understand us on what we are saying on this issue. We don’t want confusion. We are saying as women we want that empowerment, we are entitled to that empowerment, to that quota so that we are also sitting on the decision- making bench,” she said

Undenge said the First Lady had women at heart and wanted to ensure they were empowered.

“Amai was the one who said she wanted to meet chairladies. She was also the one who said that she wanted to empower the chairladies. Amai always says that to be what she is today it is because of chairladies. We all know that we are going into elections in 2018. As we go into the elections we should remember that the vote is in the hands of women. We want to talk about the database and BVR. As the Women’s League, we would like to declare that we will vote for President Mugabe. All women should go and register to vote and they should have all the receipts required to vote,” she said.

Undenge urged the district chairladies to fairly share the chicks donated by the First Lady. Minister of State for Manicaland Provincial Affairs Mandi Chimene, Zanu-PF provincial secretary for administration, Kenneth Saruchera, Buhera Central MP Ronald Muderedzwa and other party members attended the event. daily news