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Minister Kasukuwere

Felex Share, Harare Bureau
THE Zanu-PF Mashonaland Central provincial leadership yesterday backtracked on its conference resolution which sought to strip President Mugabe of his powers as the appointing authority in the revolutionary party.

Under pressure from provincial and executive members for smuggling in the controversial resolution, Zanu-PF national commissar Cde Saviour Kasukuwere and Mashonaland Central acting chairperson Cde Dickson Mafios called for an extraordinary provincial coordinating committee meeting and claimed the resolution was for the 2019 congress.

This is despite the fact that Cde Mafios spent the whole of last week defending the resolution that President Mugabe should not appoint his deputies, but must have them elected by party members.

Cdes Kasukuwere and Mafios are brothers and the pair was accused of concocting the resolution.

Asked about the outcome of yesterday’s crisis meeting, Cde Mafios — who was facing a vote of no confidence — said: “I am no longer obliged to talk to you, talk to Cde Kasukuwere.”

Cde Kasukuwere’s mobile phone went unanswered.

Sources that attended the meeting said so tense was the meeting that Cde Kasukuwere had to call for a separate meeting with Central Committee members who were breathing fire over the “Mafios resolution.”

“First to speak was Cde Mafios who said the resolution was not for now but for 2019 and any normal person will see the attempt to cover up because the provincial inter-district conference we held two weeks ago was for us to come up with resolutions for the forthcoming Masvingo conference next month, not 2019 congress,” said a source.

“He said because he was under attack and facing a vote of no confidence, it was proper for Cde Kasukuwere to speak. Cde Kasukuwere’s first move was to drive away the ZBCtv news crew that was present before saying the resolution on appointments was not yet approved by the province, but only found itself to the media. He failed to convince anyone and people continued breathing fire and he had to call for a separate meeting with Central Committee members who told him openly that they were aware of their tricks.”

Sources said after meeting the Central Committee members, Cde Kasukuwere came back “a changed man” as he continued his meeting with provincial executive members.

“He was just trying to cover up,” said another source.

“Instead of zeroing in on the controversial resolution, Cde Kasukuwere made each district to stand up and generally asked whether or not they had written resolutions. This prompted Central Committee member Cde Martin Mavhangira to stand up and ask him to concentrate on the hot cake rather than asking general questions and he started being mean to Cde Mavhangira. From there he skirted the issue and diverted to the issue of illegal gold panners.”

Sources said Cde Kasukuwere only called the TV crew when he wanted to attack our Harare Bureau’s reportage on the controversial resolution.
Provincial and district members who granted interviews to the media exposing the shenanigans reportedly received a barracking from Cde Kasukuwere.

A Central Committee member who preferred anonymity said: “The party leadership has to be alert to these brothers’ manoeuvres. It is clear they were testing the waters only to face resistance from the people. As a province we had dumped (Cde) Mafios before he was taken from the bin by (Cde) Kasukuwere.”

Before the somersault, Cde Mafios last week said the one centre of power principle was not “benefiting” anyone.

The concept was introduced by amending the Zanu-PF constitution in 2014 as a way of stemming factionalism that had reared its ugly ahead of a congress held that year.

They purported the resolution only popped up when final resolutions were being read out, a clear indication that it was smuggled in by senior members.