The battle between Mugabe and Mujuru (Part 1)

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Wednesday, 24 October 2007 10:09

BY ITAI DZAMARA, HARARE - The political battle between Robert Mugabe and the Mujuru faction has intensified over the past few months as the Zanu (PF) December special congress looms. Investigations have revealed vicious rivalry, involving the use of sabotage and dangerous elimination methods.

Retired army general Solomon Mujuru heads the faction championing his wife Joice, as successor to Mugabe as the leader of the ruling party, subsequently earning the right to contest next year’s presidential elections. The Mujuru faction comprises other senior Zanu (PF) officials such as Governor of Mashonaland East Ray Kaukonde, David Butau, Joel Biggie Matiza, David Parirenyatwa, Kenneth Musanhu and David Karimanzira.

Sources privy to the goings-on within the ruling party revealed to The Zimbabwean recently that programmes targeted at weakening and inflicting damage on the Mujuru faction have been implemented at the behest of Mugabe, mainly using the security forces to manage power dynamics.

It has emerged that members of the Mujuru faction were the major victims within the Zanu (PF) system of the controversial programme by government to enforce price reductions in the manufacturing, wholesale and retail sectors.

Sources involved have also revealed that Mugabe tried to get at the Mujurus through the foiled coup plot of June this year.

“The Mujuru faction has been in the forefront of resisting Mugabe’s plans aimed at safeguarding his power. Remember the 2010 project he wanted to push, as well as the attempt at having him prematurely endorsed as the party candidate for next year’s presidential elections,” a Zanu (PF) official said. “This faction has declared itself a sworn enemy of Mugabe and a threat to his power games. Hence the aged leader has launched an offensive against the faction in rather a brutal manner.”

The security forces, particularly the police in this case, have also been used to target the operations of the Mujurus and their followers in the crackdown on illegal minerals mining and marketing.

“The plan has been to paralyse the Mujuru faction through hitting at its strengths, and the primary target has been crippling its income-generating base,” a source said.
A senior Zimbabwe Republic Police (ZRP) official confirmed the use of the police to destroy the Mujuru faction. “There were clear and specific directives from the top echelons of government to target the gold and diamond operations of the Mujuru faction, with information being provided from the president’s office. The same was done during the price control operation. Teams were set out specifically to deal with businesses owned by the Mujurus and other politicians in their camp.”

This paper has established that businesses owned by Kaukonde and Butau were targeted during the crackdown on prices, leading to the arrest of their managers. There were also failed attempts at opposing the operation to enforce price reductions by the Mujuru faction. Kaukonde operates a bus company and a chain of supermarkets in addition to having shares in a number of blue chip companies. Butau has operations in the cotton marketing industry.

One of the members of the Mujuru faction, speaking on condition of anonymity, told The Zimbabwean: “There has been a deliberate plan to sabotage our business operations while another process was pursued at the same time aimed at killing us politically, which included a media black-out or negative coverage. All this has been spearheaded by Mugabe. Daggers are drawn and we believe the party (Zanu) has to allow the will of the people to prevail regarding election of leaders to represent it in vital elections such as the presidential polls next year. Indeed, we are going to fight all the way for our candidate, whom we believe has the capacity to correct things in the country.”

Sources also told us that Solomon Mujuru was put under house arrest after the coup plan in June and Mugabe tried through his security handlers to pin him down. “There was a plan to have the whole coup saga end up implicating Mujuru as the architect and it would come out saying he wanted to pave the way for his wife thereby destroying her politically,” a source said.

The state-controlled media has reportedly been issued with directives by Mugabe’s spokesman George Charamba not to cover Joice Mujuru or members of her faction, while increasing a positive bias towards Mugabe.

A journalist at one of the country’s daily newspapers said the directive had specifically stated that Mugabe had to enjoy unwavering front page or top story coverage, but a black-out had to be imposed on the Mujuru faction.
“This is aimed at pulling us down through the media ahead of the special congress so that members of the party are opinionated in a manner that will see them back Mugabe’s candidature,” a member of the Mujuru faction said. “This is being done parallel to the campaign by war veterans, youths and women’s groups in the party being sponsored to campaign for Mugabe’s endorsement and threaten others, particularly those from the Mujuru faction.”

It has also emerged that Mugabe is scheming to elbow out the majority of the Mujuru faction members through a primary election process to choose those that will represent the party in next year’s parliamentary elections. “Mugabe is using the war veterans, youths and women to destroy their chances before the primary process,” a source said.

*Next week in Part 2 we reveal how the Mujuru faction is fighting against Mugabe’s power plans to the extent that it opposed the 18th amendment and planned to block it in parliament - only to be “sabotaged” by the MDC.