Harare — PRESIDENT Robert Mugabe will only anoint a successor in his Zanu PF party after elections, which the 88-year-old leader wants held this year hoping to win against all odds. Mugabe insisted last week he would not quit power until after all foreign-owned businesses have ceded majority ownership to blacks.
Sources in the party said Mugabe has instructed the two leading contenders in the race to succeed him, Vice-President Joice Mujuru and Defence minister Emmerson Mnangagwa, to stop plotting against each other and instead concentrate on ensuring that the party becomes united ahead of elections.
The sources said this explained why Mujuru pledged before Mugabe two weeks ago that she would not run for presidency as long as he remained in power.
The same week, Mnangagwa also dismissed reports that he had entered a secret pact with Mugabe to take over the leadership of the country. The claim was also rebuffed by Zanu PF secretary for administration, Didymus Mutasa and party spokesperson, Rugare Gumbo, who said Mnangagwa was too junior in the party to be the top contender for the post.
"Mugabe has separately promised Mujuru and Mnangagwa that he will back them if he wins the election," said a Zanu PF politburo source. "This is why you have seen the two faction leaders displaying loyalty to Mugabe, both claiming that they are not interested in occupying the highest office in the land, yet deep down they are itching to take over from him."
Another source said Mugabe still believed he was the only one in the party with a realistic chance to beat Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai of MDC-T in elections.
He said Mugabe was eager to hold elections this year with or without a new constitution because he fears that if the polls were delayed, it would become almost impossible for him to campaign next year due to old age and deteriorating health.
"Mugabe has promised the party he will win the elections by whatever means necessary, even if it means the creation of a GNU 2," said the official.
Zanu PF spokesperson, Rugare Gumbo, said the issue of succession would be discussed by the politburo at the "appropriate" time.
"The politburo is the policy-making body outside congress and this issue of succession will be discussed at some of our forthcoming meetings," he said.
Political analyst, Shakespeare Hamauswa, said Mugabe had stopped the succession debate after realising that divisions within the party would likely worsen if the issue continued to be raised.
"Mugabe probably thinks that discussing succession is not good for a party which is going for elections. This will cause further divisions and reduce his chances of winning," he said.
University of Zimbabwe political science lecturer, Professor John Makumbe, said Mugabe wanted to win the next elections and thereafter hand over power to whoever Zanu PF selects as the next party leader.
"What he does not know is that the proposed new constitution might say a new president must be elected in 90 days of his leaving office and he or she may not come from Zanu PF," he said.
But former Zimbabwe National Liberation Army (Zanla) commander, Dzinashe Machingura said Mugabe would never appoint a successor as he now behaved like a king with divine power to rule for life.
"Since Mugabe assumed power in Zanu PF in 1977, there have been no real elections in the party. We have now regressed into a system of chieftainship, where the issue of succession is only discussed after one's death," he said.
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I had directed this post to the undersigned but feel that it is relevant in response to this article!!
Tichaona_Sibanda;
I notice with great pleasure and satisfaction that the internet, particularly the blog I follow most - AllAfrica - is awash with stories or articles about ZANU-PF this ZANU-PF that. This is as it should be as this also, in a way helps ZANU-PF in its campaigns.
This week alone we are confronted with topics like; "ZANU-PF members defect to MDC-T; Mugabe succession game plan exposed; Military tightens grip on ZANU-PF; Mugabe in a fix; Tsvangirai on alliance with Mujuru faction; ZANU-PF still to decide on DCC elections etc, etc".
The authors of these stories, like you Sibanda, aim to destroy the revolutionary party; you aim to present the party of the people in bad light and you also aim to lower the ZANU-PF flag while at the same time raising the MDC-T one. However, while it is true that these stories are in bad light, they are also helping in publicising the revolutionary party to those who do not know much about it.
Racist, illegitimate and rebel Ian Smith tried it during the liberation struggle but at the end of it all it turned out to be an advantage to ZANU-PF. The more he demonised ZANU-PF, the more people flocked to join the VANGUARD Party. The more he lied that so many so-called 'terrorists' have been killed or have defected to the regime the more others risked their lives to join those that remained.
Not so long ago Blair tried the same old discredited strategy (of demonising ZANU-PF and its leadership) but the more he did that the more people (around the world) questioned his motive and the more they loved ZANU-PF. This is why he had to impose sanctions on the people of Zimbabwe and putting our leaders on a so-called "sanctions list".
The idea was to make sure that our leaders do not have the chance to explain the ZANU-PF position on everything they (racist and evil westerners) were saying at their summits, conferences and in their parliaments. They reckoned that leaving President Mugabe to engage DIRECTLY with the world would expose them as lairs, which they really are.
Blair and Bush and their predecessors, did not want the world to know that the war (bilateral dispute) that was and is still there between Zimbabwe and Britain is about THE LAND OF ZIMBABWE that was in the hands of illegal, racist and barbaric invaders of British extraction.
Blair did not want President Mugabe to explain that the LAND of Zimbabwe, which we have since REPOSSESSED, was forcibly grabbed from our fore fathers in 1890 and that we were left with NOTHING and I mean NOTHING, and we were made slaves or forth class citizens in our own country of birth.
What we are witnessing now is just an extension of that 'war'. Now this time it is interesting in the sense that people like you Tichaona, have joined it (war) on the side of the enslaver, genocidiar, oppressor and invader of our lands - your fore father's land. What boggles the mind is why you do not see that you are on the wrong side of the 'war'. Are you not aware of people like Nyathi who caused the death of thousands of black Zimbabweans at Nhadzonia? Are you doing it for filthy lucre and if so what is it worth vis-à-vis the people of Zimbabwe. Is the money you are being paid greater than your country - the land mass of Zimbabwe?
Are you not aware of the likes of Chikerema, Sithole, Muzorewa, and Chirau just to name these few who retarded our march towards freedom and independence? Their being on the side of the enemy resulted in the death of millions of Zimbabweans whose lives could have been served had we been on the same side against the enemy - the invader of the African land.
However, some of us are not surprised by this (your actions) because you are not the first person to have sold out as indicated above and you are certainly not going to be the last. Zimbabwe's path to freedom, independence and EMPOWERMENT is and SHALL remain littered with names of both those who fought on the side of the people and those who fought on the side of the enemy but the TRUTH SHALL ALWAYS TRIUMPH.
For your own information, factions are a normal function of any democratic organisation. Any organisation with no factions is UNDEMOCRATIC. Politics is about power and that power has to be contested; it has to be wrestled from somewhere. That is why politics is said to be an “intriguing game and an art of the possible”. Anything is possible and everything goes in politics, thus one has to fight in order to gain political power.
What is happening in ZANU-PF is a sign that democracy in alive, kicking and is well. Even in the imperialist organisation you work for – Short Wave Radio Africa – if this is not happening then you should know that you are working in and under a dictatorship.
The undeniable fact is that you are employed to rise through the ranks to become the senior most individual in your organisation. Now, if you have no ambitions to rise up the ladder then it means you are a zombie.
Similarly, as I said above, politics is about acquiring or getting power; you do not want power, then get out of politics. People in ZANU-PF are exercising their right, AT EVERY LEVEL, of being part and parcel of the ZANU-PF democratic political process.
I remember during the struggle we aspired (from what was ordinarily and loosely called ‘Killer man’ Level) to be at the Section Level and when one gets there, they want to be in the Platoon Level, Company or Detachment Level, Battalion Level etc until one joins the Camp Level (the beginning of the main stream political level); General Staff, High Command, Central Committee and ultimately into the Politburo and eventually THE PRESIDENCY.
Any Zimbabwean who does not aspire to be the President of Zimbabwe is just but a FOOL!! I personally would, one day, want to be the President of Zimbabwe but I have no intentions of pushing the current President out before his time and by his time I mean as long as he is still there and willing to serve the people of Zimbabwe.
While it may be true that factionalism breeds divisions which can cost votes, it is only the uneducated fools that will jump ship or “come to blows” when they lose in an election at whatever level. Learned people, and by learned I mean those who know what politics is, do not worst time fighting for or over a post because they know that there is ALWAYS TOMORROW.
I may lose today but I know that tomorrow GOD will certainly smile at me as I will win and this is how it should always be. Hence, the losing (learned) candidates MUST OF NECESSITY support those that have won INSTEAD OF 'Kurovera bhora musango' (kicking the ball into the terraces rather than between the goal posts), so to speak.
Did we not see how ugly factionalism was between Obama and Clinton to the extent of the latter’s supporter stabbing the former’s supporter in the stomach. However, are the two camps not working together today in the present regime? Were they not in the same party of so-called ‘Democrats’?
What is different here when Mnangagwa and Mujuru aspire to be the next President of this country? For one to be President one needs to have supporters that will vote for them. Now here, when you (Tichaona) present your ‘facts’, it is as if ZANU-PF alone, the world over, should have ‘smooth’ transition from one leader to the other without any contestations at all.
How many factions exist in MDC-T? Don't we have the Makone faction, the Biti faction and the Tsvangirai faction? Why was there the 2005 split of the sellout, stooge and puppet party – MDC? Why did MDC-T supporters fight running battles during that commemoration in Harare in front of diplomats and the cameras; and also in Kwekwe; in Gweru and in Bulawayo which they blamed on infiltration from ZANU-PF or was it the CIO?
That, to you, is not factionalism but when the same thing happens in ZANU-PF then it becomes FACTIONALISM in big letters!! Are you not showing gross idiocy there, Sibanda?