Harare - Former Zimbabwe presidential minister Didymus Mutasa has called on President Jacob Zuma to alert other southern African governments about the ruling Zanu-PF’s congress last week in which he said he and vice-president Joice Mujuru were sacked from their posts undemocratically.
“We refuse to be chucked out of Zanu-PF which some of us have been in for 57 years,” Mutasa said on Saturday from India, where his wife is having medical treatment.
“We fought for ‘one man, one vote’ majority rule, which is not provided for in the current Zanu-PF constitution adopted at the 6th congress,” Mutasa said. “It gives all votes to the president alone and violates the supreme law of the country. It is therefore null and void, all that transpired at the 6th congress.”
He added: “We call on Zanu-PF to work as it was before the 6th congress which was itself unlawful,” Mutasa said. He was referring to the fact that loyalists of President Robert Mugabe and opponents of Mujuru had unilaterally changed the procedures for electing top party officials just before the congress.
Where before the top officials had always been elected by delegates at the congress, this year the party’s constitution was changed to give Mugabe the sole power.
“We appeal to SADC to adopt our position,” Mutasa said on Saturday, referring to the Southern African Development Community (SADC), the southern African inter-governmental body of which both South Africa and Zimbabwe are members.
He also appealed “to Zimbabweans to remain peaceful as we strive for the democracy that we fought for”. South Africa, on behalf of SADC, mediated the regional efforts to resolve Zimbabwe’s political crisis which came to a head in the 2008 elections when the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) and its leader Morgan Tsvangirai beat Zanu-PF and Mugabe but were never allowed to assume power.
Then President Thabo Mbeki mediated negotiations among Zanu-PF and the two MDC parties for a power-sharing government which ostensibly ran Zimbabwe from 2009 until elections last year, although Zanu-PF never really relinquished control.
Zuma took over from Mbeki and mediated negotiations among the three Zimbabwe parties to try to secure a level political playing field for the 2013 elections but never really succeeded as they were held under conditions highly favourable to Zanu-PF.
Mugabe and Zanu-PF won by a landslide.
Mutasa was in charge of the vast Central Intelligence Organisation and reported directly to Mugabe as its unaudited funds come from the presidential budget.
A columnist in a privately owned Harare newspaper on Friday described Mutasa, one of Mugabe’s most loyal insiders, as one of the main “grovellers” in the cabinet prior to his dismissal last Tuesday.
Mutasa , from the eastern Manicaland province, was often accused by human rights groups and local opposition supporters of organising violence against them since the MDC emerged late 1999.
Mutasa, who has grabbed several farms from white farmers near Rusape since 2000, has allowed one evicted white farmer to grow tobacco for him on the farm Coldstream.
A Zimbabwe columnist, known as Muckraker, had little sympathy for the plight of Mujuru and her supporters. “Why didn’t Mujuru stand firm (against) violence in the ruling party… and why wouldn’t she realise Zimbabweans wanted clean water, electricity and decent life while she was on the gravy train?” he asked on Friday.
Independent Foreign Service