Information Minister Jonathan Moyo yesterday said the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front provincial elections had nothing to do with succession because there was no vacancy in the leadership of the party, the government and the country.
“It is important to outline and underscore the fact that President Mugabe has just been elected for a five year term as the leader of ZANU-PF to run the government and that, therefore, there is no vacancy in the leadership of the party, government and country. It is also important to note that the ZANU-PF provincial elections are not succession elections and that anyone who thinks they are will only have themselves to blame,” he said.
In a statement to clarify media reports that have linked the elections to the battle for succession, Moyo said, the fact that the politburo had endorsed the results of the elections in Manicaland, Mashonaland Central and Midlands did not mean that there were no irregularities.
“The Politburo resolved to confirm the disputed provincial election results in the Midlands and Mashonaland provinces not in favour or against any real or perceived faction but in order to foster the closing of ranks in the party by letting bygones be bygones. When you let bygones be bygones, it does not mean that there were no irregularities or problems but that you are consciously deciding to move forward together in pursuit of a larger objective of unity and progress which the Politburo decided to do. This was done because the Politburo is made up of the national leadership of the party and is therefore responsible to the entire membership of the party regardless of what real or perceived factions elements of that membership may belong to.”
The media has been viewing the provincial elections as a battle between Vice-President Joice Mujuru and Justice Minister Emmerson Mnangagwa who are supposed to be the two leading contenders to succeed Mugabe.
The Mujuru faction is reported to have won the three provinces whose results have been announced so far.
Below is Moyo statement in full:
- As Minister responsible for, among other things, the media it is important to me that the media in our country is not only depolarised but that it is also enabled to have full and balanced information about goings on in the ruling party and in government in order for it to be in a position to publish all viewpoints in a major story of public or national interest. The decisions of yesterday’s extraordinary meeting of the ZANU-PF is case in point.
- It is neither true nor correct that the confirmation of the ZANU-PF provincial elections in Manicaland, Midlands and Mashonaland Central means that the Politburo endorsed a real or perceived faction against another real or perceived rival faction. That assertion is nonsense. The Politburo is an organ of the party and not an organ of a faction. Any attempt to factionalise the Politburo is doomed to fail because it will be resisted by the ZANU- PF membership which is solidly behind President Mugabe as the leader of the party, government and country.
- As a matter of fact, yesterday’s Politburo resolved that the announcement of the Mashonaland Central provincial election result without prior notification of the national leadership and confirmation of that result by the Politburo was wrong as was the attempt to hold elections in the remaining seven provinces when the President was out of the country.
- Also as a matter of fact, the Politburo resolved to confirm the disputed provincial election results in the Midlands and Mashonaland provinces not in favour or against any real or perceived faction but in order to foster the closing of ranks in the party by letting bygones be bygones. When you let bygones be bygones, it does not mean that there were no irregularities or problems but that you are consciously deciding to move forward together in pursuit of a larger objective of unity and progress which the Politburo decided to do. This was done because the Politburo is made up of the national leadership of the party and is therefore responsible to the entire membership of the party regardless of what real or perceived factions elements of that membership may belong to.
- Still further, and also as a matter of fact, anyone who cares to carefully audit the results of the ZANU-PF elections in the Midlands and Mashonaland Central provinces they will be immediately struck by the reality that the results are too close as to warrant any fanciful suggestion that any real or perceived faction won against a real or perceived rival faction. This fact was not lost to the Politburo hence the decision to close ranks by not allowing a contest in the remaining districts that did not vote for the sake of unity demanded by the closeness of the results in the two provinces. The same is true in Manicaland where, while the margin was huge between the contestants for the position of provincial chairman, the overall results were also too close such that no real or perceived faction can claim to be on a runaway train.
- The bottom line is that while the ongoing ZANU-PF provincial elections are necessary to hold in terms of the party’s constitution, their timing has indubitably unsettled Zimbabweans who are tired of elections and who would like to see both the ruling party and government putting all their energies into uniting and moving the country forward by focusing on Zim Asset to improve the livelihoods of all Zimbabweans. In this vein, it is important to outline and underscore the fact that President Mugabe has just been elected for a five year term as the leader of ZANU-PF to run the government and that, therefore, there is no vacancy in the leadership of the party, government and country. It is also important to note that the ZANU-PF provincial elections are not succession elections and that anyone who thinks they are will only have themselves to blame.
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