Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister Christopher Mutsvangwa is in trouble over his remarks about Vice-President Joice Mujuru and Presidential Affairs Minister Didymus Mutasa at the weekend in an interview with The Herald. Mutsvangwa disparaged Mujuru and Mutasa, number two and number four in the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front, by telling Mujuru that she was not the automatic successor of President Robert Mugabe as she had been offered the post of Vice-President by Mugabe. He also said it was a lie that she downed a Rhodesian helicopter during the liberation war rubbishing this as propaganda by Webster Shamu who was in the party’s information department at the time. Mutsvangwa also said Mutasa was an opportunist who had been sowing seeds of disunity since the 1980s when he misled former secretary-general Edgar Tekere, then number two to Mugabe, to leave the party and form the Zimbabwe Unity Movement. Mutsvangwa claimed that Mutasa had done the same thing by misleading Simba Makoni, another potential successor to Mugabe at the time, to form the Mavambo Kusile Dawn party. Mutsvangwa said Mutasa was now misleading Mujuru to think she was the heir apparent to Mugabe so that he too could rise. Party spokesman Rugare Gumbo said Mutsvangwa would face disciplinary action because his remarks were uncalled for. “This is an internal issue and it will be dealt with following the party's rules and regulations as laid down in the procedures and action will be taken accordingly,” Gumbo said, adding that as a senior member of the party Mutsvangwa knew how to communicate if he had any issues with the leadership. Factional fighting has intensified in ZANU-PF as it prepares for its elective congress in December.
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