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President Mugabe and First Lady Cde Grace Mugabe with Vice Presidents Phelekezela Mphoko and Emmerson Mnangagwa before the Politburo meeting in Harare yesterday

Chronicle Reporter
PRESIDENT Robert Mugabe yesterday called for unity in his Zanu-PF party, hoping to reset party relations after weeks of mudslinging between senior officials.

“If there’s any difference, come let’s sit down then we see the best way forward in line with the party regulations,” President Mugabe said while addressing thousands of Zanu-PF supporters gathered outside the party’s headquarters in Harare.

Senior party officials, he said, were leaking sensitive party information to pro-opposition newspapers and damaging the party.

“This business of attacking others, we don’t want that. If you feel you’re aggrieved, the party has a way of dealing with that. Come to the party, not the opposition (media), you’ll never find a solution there. That’s not how you handle issues.”

The President, speaking just before the start of a marathon Politburo meeting, said the often public clashes between senior Zanu-PF officials was titillating the hostile media and even giving encouragement to the party’s political enemies.

“Even [Morgan] Tsvangirai,” he said, referring to the MDC-T leader, “is saying the country is being led astray because of the fights in Zanu-PF. People now see us as more divided than his party. He’s happy with that, not knowing he no longer has a party. He has a fraction of a party.”

War Veterans Minister Chris Mutsvangwa and his Higher Education counterpart Professor Jonathan Moyo have been locked in an ugly media war, trading barbs including questioning one’s paternity and claims of stealing women’s underwear during the liberation struggle.

George Charamba, the President’s spokesperson, has also been dragged into the spat by Prof Moyo who reacted angrily to a radio interview he did with ZiFM which the minister felt targeted him, although his name was not mentioned.

The officials are trading counter accusations of being “successionists” — a term invented by Prof Moyo, but now used by both sides, to mean individuals seeking to stampede President Mugabe out of power and replace him with their preferred candidate.

Said President Mugabe: “The media, especially the opposition one, is having a time of their life, something which has never happened. They (Politburo members) are going to the private media and saying ‘I’ve done this to so and so’, as if they’re kindergarten children.

“Yesterday [Tuesday], after our Cabinet meeting, we deliberated on that at length and I said down with that.”

President Mugabe thanked the gathered party faithful, who were mobilised by the Women’s League, and condemned reports that supporters from the Midlands had been barred from travelling to Harare at the threat of violence.

He said Zanu-PF could not win elections without the Women’s League, which he called the “vanguard of the party”.

“We can’t win a single election without you (women),” he said to cheers. “During the colonial era, women used to get lower salaries than men and we said down with that because the work is the same. We’ve championed the rights of the girl child even in education, among other sectors.”

President Mugabe also took time to brief the supporters on the outcomes of the summits and meetings he attended during the last quarter of last year as African Union chairman, including the handover ceremony of the chairmanship last month in Ethiopia.

He chronicled how he had moved other continental leaders to fight for a permanent seat at the United Nations Security Council, adding that the “Western world shouldn’t continue belittling us.”

President Mugabe said foreigners who wanted to work in the country should come as partners and stand guided by the country’s laws.