Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe has threatened to weed out top members destabilising his party in the aftermath of fiercely contested party elections to select his second deputy. Mugabe’s party Zanu (PF) now has two broad factions ruthlessly slugging it out in an escalating power struggle to replace the president. (25-NOV-04)

This article was originally written by Dumisani Muleya for the South African newspaper Business Day where it was published yesterday. It has been re-edited for publication here. 

In ominous remarks seen as directed against his hitherto heir apparent Emmerson Mnangagwa, who lost the two-horse race to Joyce Mujuru, Mugabe said he would crackdown on “divisive elements” in the upper ranks of his deeply split party. The race for the second deputy president’s post was generally seen as a pointer of whom Mugabe’s successor would be. His other deputy, Joseph Msika has let known his desire to retire from politics.

-I’ll deal woith the greedy and the crooks
Zanu (PF) now has two broad factions ruthlessly slugging it out in an escalating power struggle to replace Mugabe, one led by Mnangagwa and the other by Zanu (PF) kingmaker, retired general Solomon Mujuru, Joyce’s husband. “There are some elements that are developing within the party and those are the divisive elements we must take care of,” Mugabe said. “Some are trying to sway you to vote for them using cunning methods. We are going to our congress in the next week and we want delegates to be aware of these clandestine and cunning knaves.” Mugabe also said he would deal with “greedy” officials and “crooks” within his party who bribe voters and want to “grab bread from other people’s mouths There are crooks in the party who want to get posts at whatever cost.”

-There will be crackers
“The names will be revealed because they have been using money from white capitalists, some of them who even have links to Britain,” he said. Mugabe also said he would deal with “greedy” officials in his party who see voters as “purchasable goods”. His threats came ahead of his party’s critical decision-making politburo meeting today, which he said would be full of “crackers”. “We will be busy this week and on Wednesday (today) we meet as the politburo and there will be crackers there,” he said.

Clean sweep for Mugabe, infighting among his deputy candidates
Zanu (PF) held elections recently to nominate leaders for the next five years in the run to its congress, which starts next week. Congress, which comes every five years, will endorse the names of those nominated. Mugabe won a clean sweep with 100% of the provincial executive councils’ votes unchallenged, while his first vice-president, Joseph Msika, won 70% of the vote, second vice-president Joyce Mujuru, the first ever woman in that position, got 60% of the vote and chairman John Nkomo 60% of the vote. Although Mnangagwa’s camp had mobilised significant support initially about 60% of the voters before Mujuru’s group launched a decisive assault for power, Mnangagwa, until now seen as Mugabe’s anointed successor, again proved hard to sell to voters. He was defeated by Nkomo in race for the chairmanship in 1999 before losing his parliamentary seat to the opposition Movement for Democratic Change in 2000. Mnangagwa’s camp is now understood to be trying to fight back to reverse the nominations.