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Zimbabwe cannot establish international acceptability while Mugabe is still in power

Zimbabwe cannot establish international acceptability while President Robert Mugabe and his cohorts continue to hold on to power, Middle East publication Gulf News said today.

The Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front is amending its constitution to allow the party leader to appoint members of the powerful politburo and only awaits central committee approval.

The central committee is currently being weeded out of all elements that wanted Mugabe out.

According to the Gulf News: “The narrative that emanates from there is fabricated and based on deceit and treachery. The government is on the back foot, as it woos investors in a bid to clarify the controversial black empowerment laws, but this is a pathetic attempt to hide the truth — that it operates on the whims of one man who believes that the world is demonising him irrationally.”

Finance Minister Patrick Chinamasa was in South Africa last week to woo investors and said Zimbabwe was open for business.

“We are about to run, to sprint. We are looking for partners to sprint with us,” he was quoted by the South African Press Association as saying. “I am saying we rely on you, because when you come to invest in our country you must tell us the challenges you are facing and that will help us correct them… The reality is we are now politically stable. The perception that you have that we don’t respect private property is not true. The land issue has been addressed.”

Mugabe supporters argued that they were giving the party leader powers to appoint his team to avoid the creation of more than one centre of power.

They argue that Vice-President Joice Mujuru had become a centre of power competing against Mugabe. Similar allegations have not been raised about Justice Minister Emmerson Mnangagwa though he is considered another centre of power.

Both Mujuru and Mnangagwa have claimed that they do not lead any factions with Mnangagwa arguing: Ko varipo vanenge vaindepi?

(49 VIEWS)

This post was last modified on November 25, 2014 8:47 am

Charles Rukuni

The Insider is a political and business bulletin about Zimbabwe, edited by Charles Rukuni. Founded in 1990, it was a printed 12-page subscription only newsletter until 2003 when Zimbabwe's hyper-inflation made it impossible to continue printing.

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