Zimbabwe’s ruling party, Zanu PF, will this coming week take it’s factional wars to the ancient city of Masvingo.
Once seen as a solid and united party, Zanu PF is fighting to survive restless factions waging relentless media and boardroom campaigns to gain upper hand in the now public race to succeed President Robert Mugabe who is expected to leave office any time.
Speaking ahead of the congress lasting between the 13th and 17th of this December, analyst Eldred Masunungure said Zanu-PF’s factional struggles would overshadow substantive issues at the conference.
“It would be foolish to expect anything substantive to come out of the conference. Zanu-PF gatherings have continuously disappointed people’s expectations. So we do not expect anything to come out of Masvingo. It will be the war of factions,” he said.
Zanu-PF’s Mashonaland Central province has set the tone for what could turn out to be a chaotic and gruelling six-day gathering in Zimbabwe’s oldest city.
The province’s chairman Dickson Mafios — seen as a proxy of the so-called G40 Zanu-PF faction — torched a storm last week when he announced that Mashonaland Central had proposed that Zanu-PF abolish its one centre of power principle because it is undemocratic.
The announcement was met with scorn and ridicule by those rooting for Vice-President Emmerson Mnangagwa to take over from Mugabe.
Reacting to the G40’s failed Mashonaland resolution, a Mnangagwa apologist and Gokwe Nembudziya MP, Justice Mayor Wadyajena launched a scathing attack on anti-Mnangagwa elements in Zanu PF.
In his Twitter posts, Wadyajena took a swipe at Higher Education minister Jonathan Moyo and Indigenisation minister Patrick Zhuwao, describing the duo as dunderheads.
“Incompetent @Hon_Zhuwao is too irrelevant in the scheme of things. He is a well-known dunderhead,” Wadyajena tweeted.
Moyo and Zhuwao did not answer their mobiles when asked to comment on Wadyajena attacks.
