Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe on Monday acknowledged that there is infighting in the upper ranks of his ruling party ahead of a key party congress due next month, state television reported.
The 80-year-old leader’s remarks came amid speculation of intense jockeying for positions of power within Mugabe’s Zimbabwe African National Union — Patriotic Front (Zanu-PF) ahead of parliamentary elections to be held in March next year.
”There is beginning to be conflict between and amongst us in Zanu-PF … it is at the leadership at the top,” Mugabe said at a rural school in western Zimbabwe where he had gone to hand out computers.
”Who are you to want to have that place and to want to want to push someone from that place which was given him by congress?” he asked.
It was not clear who the veteran southern leader was referring to, but on Saturday he told party supporters that he supported the idea of having a woman vice-president voted for at a forthcoming Zanu-PF congress, although he predicted some senior male party officials would oppose it.
At a separate handing-out ceremony Mugabe told the gathering that ”divisive elements” within his party had to be dealt with.
”There are elements that are developing within our party, divisive elements that we must take care of,” he said.
”Others are now trying through clandestine ways, divisive ways, to get to posts in the party without your authority, but using cunning method to sway you. [They are] using lots of money to sway you,” he said.
”Don’t be divided, and don’t be tempted. We are not there for purchase,” Mugabe urged the gathering. He said the errant politicians were using money given to them by ”white capitalists with links to Britain.”
Mugabe’s party has consistently claimed that former colonial power Britain is trying to institute a regime change in Zimbabwe, but this is the first time Mugabe has accused members within his own party of siding with his perceived enemies. – Sapa-AFP