/ 17 January 2005

A party divided

Zanu-PF will contest the March parliamentary elections a divided house. The old guard might have wrestled control of the ruling party in Zimbabwe but its authority has become increasingly tenuous since the bruising leadership struggle at its December congress in which Joyce Mujuru emerged triumphant.

Disgruntled members who attended the unsanctioned Zanu-PF Tsholotsho meeting to drum up support for Speaker of Parliament Emmerson Mnangagwa’s failed bid for the party vice-presidency, claim that they’re being ”alienated by the vetting committee” ahead of primary elections on Saturday to decide Zanu-PF candidates for the poll.

The Zanu-PF politburo is expected to ratify Wednesday’s vetting committee decision to disqualify, among others, Minister of Information Jonathan Moyo, Minister of Justice Patrick Chinamasa, war veterans’ leader Jabulani Sibanda and his deputy Joseph Chinotimba and six provincial chairpersons from standing.

Moyo’s approach to his initial rejection, a Zanu-PF insider told the Mail & Guardian, angered the party top brass. ”Moyo first presented his case to the newspapers before the elections directorate had even seen them. That is the problem he created for himself.”

Moyo’s constituency has been earmarked for a female candidate. ”There is no way rules are going to be bent for one person,” the source said.

But some of those who have been purged from the candidates list claim that the strategy to reserve a third of the 120 constituencies for women is merely a ploy to drive them out and leave them no option but to stand as independents.

Sibanda told the M&G that ”those people involved in the systematic elimination of challengers have no support”.

The war veterans’ leader who has been barred from standing in his Bubi-Umguza constituency has thrown his weight behind Moyo. ”He is liked throughout the country, even in his constituency. It will be a disaster to have him out. He has worked harder than most people.”

Sibanda said voters would stay away from the polls if their ”preferred choice was rejected”. ”People want to go to the polls united; these people at the top are dividing the party.”

The Zanu-PF vetting committee — which decides the fate of candidates — is aligned to the old guard or the Mujuru camp. They are adamant that the party’s December congress had adopted the guidelines that political analyst Alois Masepe of the University of Zimbabwe described as a danger in itself. ”You don’t come up with new guidelines on the eve of elections, you confuse the electorate.”

A former Zanu-PF MP Margaret Dongo who successfully campaigned as an independent in 1995, urged Zanu-PF members to be ”bold enough to say enough is enough”.

”There is no democracy in Zanu-PF. Those who are disgruntled should have the balls to walk out.”

But Masepe believes those who go it alone are doomed. ”They can’t survive outside the party. Zimbabwe’s current political landscape has no room for those likely to participate as independents.”

The growing discontent in Zanu-PF this week spilled over on to the streets as protesters made their way to the party headquarters in Harare. One placard read, ”Musha waparara [The party is destroyed]”, much to the annoyance of Mugabe who had to cut short his holiday.

In his response to the criticism, the chair of the vetting committee Elliot Manyika said, ”The complaints are a reflection that the party is not only alive and kicking but also popular and democratic.”