Mugove Tafirenyika • 16 October 2015 1:17PM • 26 comments
HARARE - President Robert Mugabe’s controversial wife, Grace — who is increasingly seen as eager to succeed her husband — has bluntly told her post-congress Zanu PF foes who harbour presidential ambitions to leave the former liberation movement and form their own parties.
Speaking ahead of her Rushinga rally on Wednesday, and in remarks that party insiders said were directed at Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa, the influential First Lady savaged youth league officials allegedly aligned to the embattled VP, telling them that they were not needed in the ruling party.
Well-placed sources who spoke to the Daily News yesterday said Grace was seething with anger when she met the ruling party’s Mashonaland Central provincial leadership in a closed-door meeting, just before she addressed the gathered crowds, and in the wake of the resignation of several youth league leaders around the country.
“Dr Amai (Grace) was very angry with the youth league, especially the much-talked about mass resignations of youth chairmen following the suspension of (Godfrey) Tsenengamu and his colleagues.
“She said very openly that all those who were not happy with her visit to Rushinga should leave the party and form their own parties,” a youth league executive member said.
“She also vowed that the party would not be held to ransom by the youth league members who think they are kingmakers in Zanu PF, warning them that their days and those of their handlers were numbered in the party,” he added.
Several youth chairpersons across the country, many of whom helped engineer Grace’s meteoric rise to the leadership of the women’s league, have recently resigned from their positions, citing intimidation and harassment by ruling party hardliners who accuse them of supporting Mnangagwa’s alleged presidential bid.
This followed the contested suspension from the party of Mashonaland Central youth chairperson Godfrey Tsenengamu, secretary for administration Paul Rwodzi, and secretary for security Batsirai Musani, who fell foul of Zanu PF’s much-abused votes of no-confidence last week.
Moving in solidarity with the trio, the party’s midlands provincial youth chairperson, Edmore Samambwa, his Matabeleland South counterpart, Washington Nkomo, as well as the Mashonaland West leader, Vengai Musengi, immediately resigned from their positions.
Grace followed up her behind-the-scenes tirade with another stern warning to her party rivals when she addressed her rally, saying that she would soon abandon her supposed “current diplomatic” approach and rebuke them in public.
“To those who are fanning factionalism, the party will discipline you and you must listen when I say this to you in private because I will not hesitate to blow the whistle,” Grace said, before warning that her foes would not be successful if they chose to leave the party.
“But the moment you are outside Zanu PF you are finished, you are gone. You are as good as dead. There is no life outside, it’s cold out there.
“The moment you are forced out, you have nowhere else to go because if you have noticed, the trend is that all who left Zanu PF to form their own party have not managed to make any progress,” she said.
As Grace addressed the rally— amid much pomp, ceremony and embarrassing bootlicking by, among others, Vice President Phelekezela Mphoko — it became glaringly clearer that no one in the post-congress Zanu PF could stop her if she continued to dream about succeeding her frail nonagenarian husband.
In fact, the controversial First Lady gave one of her clearest hints to date that she could be going for it, saying that she was mounting her rallies because she did not want to wait until the 2018 elections, as people would then be entitled to ask her where she would have been all along — a statement that insiders said exposed her presidential ambitions.
And as if to confirm that even Mphoko — who is senior to her, at least on paper — is not at her level, Grace went to the Mashonaland Central rally in a “presidential convoy” of two helicopters, while the dour VP hotfooted his way there by road, in addition to once again being humiliated by being asked to introduce his supposed junior to the crowds.
Seemingly to save face, Mphoko offered an unsolicited and unconvincing explanation to the crowds, saying he was happy to introduce Grace as she was Mugabe’s wife and thus represented the president wherever she went.
“President Mugabe is the centre of power and those that don’t want his leadership can move to the side and proceed to form their own party like (Simba) Makoni and (Dumiso) Dabengwa … now with utmost humility I introduce the First Lady,” the out-of-sorts VP said.
The increasingly-influential Grace provided yet another public demonstration of her power when a huge entourage of at least a dozen Cabinet ministers, an estimated 50 legislators and hundreds of other ruling party bigwigs from around the country accompanied her to the Rushinga rally.
Most of the Cabinet ministers and party officials who graced the rally are linked to Zanu PF’s ambitious Young Turks known as the Generation 40 (G40) group — that is said to be led by combative Local Government minister Saviour Kasukuwere — and which is locked in a bitter power struggle with Mnangagwa and his supporters, while expediently promoting Grace.
And as usual, the cash-strapped Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC) was once again there to cover the rally live — a costly exercise that is usually reserved for her long-ruling husband, and for which the public broadcaster and its reporter Judith Makwanya unsurprisingly got high praise from the “Unconquerable”, while the independent media were excoriated.
Grace also used the occasion to blast unnamed ambitious veterans of the country’s liberation struggle, saying their participation in the gruelling war of independence was not a ticket for them to do as they pleased, as they were not the only ones to fight for Zimbabwe’s freedom.