Rival Zanu PF factions in the Midlands mining town of Kwekwe have reportedly taken their perennial fights to a new tempo amid startling revelations that the feuding camps are now humiliatingly clashing over the control of an illegal pickup point for pirate kombis erected close to the main terminus in the central business district.
In Kwekwe, Zanu PF is divided between two main camps- one loyal to elected cadres of the Zanu PF Kwekwe District Coordinating Committee (DCC) while the other- usually referred to as the Mupereri Camp- implies the ‘old guard’ and is perceived to be fronted by Vongaishe Mupereri, who is also nephew to Local Government Minister July Moyo.
Minister July Moyo
The Mupereri camp comprises of remnants of former Zanu PF Kwekwe officials who were humiliated in last year’s DCC elections and is believed to have the blessings of Minister Moyo and his erstwhile counterpart in the person of ex-state security minister Owen ‘Mudha’ Ncube.
The latter is a longtime blue-eyed boy of Zanu PF First Secretary and sitting Head-of-State-and-Government, President Emmerson Mnangagwa whose official residence is tucked elsewhere within the largely agrarian Sherwood area.
The Zimbabwe strongman and his wife, First Lady Auxillia Mnangagwa run a successful commercial agricultural concern, under the banner of Precabe Enterprises, at their Sherwood palace.
Mudha’s deteriorating relations with his political godfather, Mnangagwa, were on public display when the Zimbabwe leader humiliatingly fired the former state security minister early this year.
On the other hand, the camp which is loyal to the current Zanu PF Kwekwe DCC executive is also perceived to be under the financial oiling of outspoken cleric-cum-businessman and the Zanu PF Kwekwe DCC secretary of Finance, Kandros Mugabe (pictured below).
Political commentators have often sympathised with Mugabe- an Archbishop at the Zvipo ZvoMweya Apostolic Church who has been at the mercy of the dethroned Mudha, and has been the Zanu PF Shadow MP since the last harmonised elections in 2018, only for the party to ‘unjustifiably and cruelly’ reject his CV, alongside that of archrival and former Minister Mudha’s nephew, Energy Dhala Ncube, at the eleventh hour before the by-elections conducted last month.
Energy Dhala Ncube
Dhala is reportedly understood to have been planted by the rival Mupereri camp- or precisely, his debatably influential uncle Mudha- to derail Mugabe’s political ambitions in Kwekwe Central after the youthful miner made a decision to challenge the man-of-the-cloth who was largely expected to be the party’s sole candidate in the by-elections for Kwekwe, birthed by the death of late National Patriotic Front (NPF) legislator, Masango Matambanadzo, popularly known as Blackman.
the late Masango Matambanadzo
After the disqualification of Mugabe and Dhala’s CVs at the Nomination Court in January ahead of the recently conducted byelections, the party ended up fielding a weaker candidate in the person of John Mapurazi, a former deputy mayor in the town, who was literally flogged off by Citizens’ Coalition for Change candidate, Judith Tobaiwa in the race to come up with the substantive replacement for Blackman on the 26th of March.
defying the odds… Kwekwe Central MP, Judith Tobaiwa
And, in the wake of the blazing divisions typifying Zanu PF in Kwekwe district, information reaching this publication indicates that the feuding Mupereri and Bishop (Mugabe) camps are now fighting over the control of an illegal parking bay for pirate commuter omnibuses in the city center.
Authoritative Zanu PF sources who spoke to a Zwnews journalist in Kwekwe last Friday fingered the DCC Secretary of Youth Affairs, David Murivha, otherwise known in local circles as Boss Divha, and a prominent party activist identified as Evidence Jongwe, alias Father, who is perceptibly a loyalist of the Mupereri/Mudha/July Moyo faction, as the faces behind the puzzling and debasing Zanu PF fights playing out at some illegal pickup point for kombis and other pirate jalopies located near the main terminus, opposite Pick ‘n’ Pay Supermarket in the CBD.
“All along, Boss Divha’s touts were manning the illegal pickup point for pirate kombis using the Amaveni route but this took a dramatic turn after Father dissented when he also brought his youths, accusing Boss Divha of appointing Zanu PF touts to collect monies from pirate kombis and private taxis using the bay,” a ruling party insider said in an interview with this publication.
Privy to the year-on-year squabbles characterising the party in President Mnangagwa’s hometown, the Zanu PF source also added, saying:
“The divided touts who were given the powers of manning the ‘rank’ by the feuding party officials (Boss Divha and Father) are still locked in vicious fights, usually in broad daylight, although they have now devised a rotational one-week-in-one-week-out roaster to fleece struggling private transport operators of their hard earned money. There was always suspicion within the Mupereri camp that Boss Divha has been using his youths to fleece motorists of hard cash on a daily basis“.
But Murivha (pictured below), who initially did not want to entertain enquiries from Zwnews, ended up laughing off the allegations, saying he was ‘too rich’ to get kickbacks from pirate kombis.
“I am not in a position to comment on such matters, my brother. But, honestly speaking, I cannot depend on such monies (from pirate kombis). We are not fighting with any perceived camp and I really do not think that, in this matter, there is any story worth writing about,” the DCC youth affairs secretary, who is also a well-to-do miner, businessman and transport operator, said.
Efforts by Zwnews to get a comment from Zanu PF provincial chairperson Larry Mavhima (pictured) were still fruitless by the time of publishing Monday afternoon.
On the other hand, Jongwe refused to respond to questions from this publication.
Zwnews
