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• Political maverick trashes People First project
• Pulls race card in bid to return to ruling party
  

Tichaona Zindoga Harare Bureau
MAVERICK politician and former Hurungwe West Member of the House of Assembly, Temba Mliswa, has made a passionate plea to Zanu-PF to take him back following his ouster from the ruling party last year after being linked to a cabal that sought to unconstitutionally unseat President Robert Mugabe.

Mliswa was touted as a vital cog in the intended putsch whose quashing claimed several scalps, including that of former Vice President Joice Mujuru, the leader of the rebels.

Mliswa was the first party provincial chairman to be sacked and since then he has been a wandering spirit, hobnobbing with the opposition and also tried to reclaim his Hurungwe West seat but lost to Cde Keith Guzah in June.

But Mliswa, who has fallen out with the Mujuru-linked People First project, said his heart is with Zanu-PF and he is prepared to return to the ruling party.

He also told our Harare Bureau about the dim prospects of People First which up to date does not have structures and is a “newspaper and social media party”.

He claimed that the rebellion in Zanu-PF and the People First project had withered on the vine because its mastermind and Mujuru’s husand, Solomon, had died.

“You see, the truth of the matter is you’re giving prominence to something which isn’t even registered,” he said.

“I mean, Jim Kunaka said what he said representing People First, as who? I tried to go around looking for the constitution, they’ve no constitution, they’ve no office. Who is the leader of the party? It’s speculative, it’s in the paper.

“And the truth of the matter is I’ve never known of a party which has no leader and which has no address…You see for me to waste time on people speculating on a newspaper party, on a social media party, I’m not like that.

“I believe politics is by going to the ground. Even the BUILD document that they put together, who endorsed it?

“They’re saying that Zanu-PF is very dictatorial. At least one thing that Zanu-PF does is call for a conference and a congress and it makes resolutions. They (People First) didn’t even call for a conference to hear from the people and for the people to endorse it.”

Mliswa said if People First had a constituency, it should have fielded candidates in the intervening by-elections.

“David Butau is People First, why did he not stand as People First in Mbire? Bhasikiti was Mwenezi and he claims to be People First but he is allowing his constituency to go to Zanu-PF but he is People First. I’ve never understood such politics. Politics is about people,” he said.

“The other issue is that who was the brains behind this (putschist agenda)? It was her husband the late General Mujuru who was the strategist, who was the driver of this.

“He is no more unfortunately. So who can replace him? No one. So you know when a project has a strategist and the strategist is not there, why continue with it?

“You’re in a war and the commander isn’t there, he knows the route, do you continue with the war or you abandon the struggle? And if you can’t beat them, you join them and you surrender”.

Mliswa is itching for a return to the ruling party.

“If it’s true that this country is about us being a better people and being a better people means the political party (Zanu-PF) being stable, why can’t the political party extend a hand of reconciliation and say a lot happened?” he said.

“Especially for me, I wrote a letter to say my suspension was not fair. As much as people would say what they want, I wrote because I didn’t believe I had done anything wrong. I believe that it was in the interest of the party that if I’m wrong it (disciplinary action) is done properly and I go back to the people who elected me and say I’m no longer in the party because I was found guilty of ABCD.

“I’ve never been given an opportunity to explain my side other than talking to you in an interview, that’s the only time that I talk about that . . . I mean Zanu-PF forgave the white man who they went to war with and killed. I’m not a white man. I never even went to war and killed anyone. But they fail to forgive me!”