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Patrick Chitumba Midlands Bureau Chief—
ZANU-PF Political Commissar, Cde Saviour Kasukuwere, yesterday castigated the Bulawayo provincial leadership for spending too much time on rumour-mongering and personal fights resulting in the party performing badly in elections. Addressing a Provincial Co-ordinating Committee (PCC) meeting at Davies Hall in the city, Cde Kasukuwere called on the province to put its act together and start mobilising party supporters ahead of the 2018 elections.

He said he was baffled that the province claiming to have 112 wards only garnered 20,000 votes in the 2013 harmonised elections.

“You say you’ve 112 structures. Now we want to know if they’re real. You must start working together. Enough is enough, we’ve been under the yoke of (MDC-T) for too long and we must be ready for the task to win back our seats,” said Cde Kasukuwere.

He called on the leadership to be honest when conducting party business adding that time for spreading lies should come to an end.

Cde Kasukuwere said Davies Hall had been turned into a place for gossiping and infighting.

“Next time we’re not meeting here. We’ll meet where the people are. This place has been turned into a room for rumour-mongering and gossip. That is not politics. Politics should be building the party,” he said.

Cde Kasukuwere warned members against calling him and bad-mouthing fellow cadres saying he would only entertain calls from those interested in building the party.

“We can’t build the party through gossip so this should come to an end. We can’t be fighting each other because that’ll cost the party in the elections,” he said.

Cde Kasukuwere ordered the party leadership to go down to the grassroots and communicate the resolutions of the 6th National People’s Congress held last December and appointments made thereafter. He expressed shock that the people had not been briefed on the President’s message during Congress.

“You were in Harare for a Congress that was attended by more than 12,000 delegates. It wasn’t about eating or sleeping in hotels. Let’s change the way we do business here. Let’s unite against MDC and not against each other,” said Cde Kasukuwere.

He said the leadership should start working on party structures from the cell, ward and district.

“Let’s build structures in Bulawayo. We’ll not leave Bulawayo until there are proper structures because we want to send MDC packing. They’re just occupying the offices and doing nothing in terms of service delivery,” said Cde Kasukuwere.

He said the party was tired of playing second fiddle to MDC in the elections.

“We can’t get used to be under the leadership of the opposition in the province, we’re tired,” said the Political Commissar.

He said Zanu-PF under the leadership of President Mugabe won resoundingly the 2013 harmonised elections.

He said it was time that Bulawayo province was counted among top performers in terms of huge numbers of voters.

“Other provinces are doing us proud and it’s high time Bulawayo stood up to be counted. We need also to rely on this province in terms of votes,” said Cde Kasukuwere.

Meanwhile, Zanu-PF yesterday announced that Vice President Phelekezela Mphoko’s meetings with the people of Bulawayo have all been moved to tomorrow.

The first meeting will be at Davies Hall at 8AM after which the VP will hold another meeting at Masotsha Ndlovu Secondary School between 11AM and 1PM.

The third meeting will be held at the Mpopoma African Methodist Church (Topiya) between 2-4PM and the last will be at Patsika Church in Nkulumane between 5-7PM.