The factional wars in the ruling Zanu PF party are worsening with the Women’s League setting up a five-member committee to probe Mutare senator and former diplomat Monica Mutsvangwa for allegedly backing those “disrespecting” first lady Grace Mugabe.
Zanu PF Women’s League national deputy secretary, Eunice Sandi Moyo, says Mutsvangwa allegedly attended a meeting that endorsed under-fire former Manicaland chairlady Happiness Nyakuedzwa, who was ousted for allegedly disrespecting the increasingly powerful Mrs. Mugabe, also the party’s Women’s League boss.
Sandi Moyo is quoted in the Herald newspaper as saying a team would be in Manicaland next week to investigate why Mutsvangwa would support “insubordination behavior”.
She said, “I think time has come where each one of us must account for her actions because if we fail to do so, things will get out of hand … People lose respect for their leaders and we cannot allow that. I am, therefore, saying things cannot be left unresolved and this issue requires us to go to Manicaland as a team and seriously understand the role Cde Mutsvangwa played in the factionalism behavior coming from that province.
“I am setting up a Commission of about four to five people who will have to go and find out how things happened there and why the first lady’s name was dragged into factional issues.”
She said it was worrying that Mutsvangwa participated in the second meeting which was allegedly illegal.
Sandi Moyo said Mutsvangwa has been replaced by her deputy Nokuthula Matsikenyiri.
Mutsvangwa’s husband and War Veterans’ Minister, Chris Mutsvangwa, is also in the line of fire for his alleged links to a faction allegedly headed by Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa.
Mnangagwa and Mrs. Mugabe are seen by many analysts as rivals in the battle to succeed 91 year-old President Robert Mugabe.
But the two have denied that they lead factions. Efforts to get a comment from Mutsvangwa were futile as she said she was in a meeting.
The party has also been rocked by serious factional fights in Masvingo, Mashonaland West province and Mashonaland East.
Mrs. Mugabe is expected to hold a rally at Murehwa Centre, Mashonaland East province on Saturday.
Political analyst Briggs Bomba of Africa Trust told Voice of America that Zanu PF has regressed to the feudal times.
“The whole discourse that is playing out, seems to be so ridiculous that it would not have a place in a system of proper political parties … modern political parties that are not built around an individual and his wife, and maybe kids and you know that are not dynastic in that feudal sense. But what we are now seeing in Zanu PF is a throwback to that feudal era.”
Zanu PF is currently restructuring its structures ahead of its annual conference in Victoria Falls. The restructuring has heightened tensions in the party.
