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President Mugabe and the First Lady Amai Grace Mugabe (seated) share a lighter moment with Malawi Congress Party publicity secretary Dr Jessie Kabwila at the official opening of the 6th zanu-pf Women’s League Conference in Harare yesterday. —(Picture by William Mafunga)

Farirai Machivenyika Senior Reporter
President Mugabe has challenged women in Zanu-PF to take a stand against those engaged in vote-buying ahead of the party’s elective National People’s Congress set for December, saying they must be independent enough to make their own choices.
The President said this while officially opening the 6th Women’s League Conference in Harare yesterday attended by nearly 4 000 women from the country’s 10 provinces, foreign delegates and invited guests.

The President said there were some ambitious members already campaigning for Central Committee posts using money to canvass support ahead of the December congress.

“Some are already campaigning vigorously and are using money and so they would want to see the Youth League and the Women’s League producing persons whom they think support them and will at Congress combine in electing them,” he said.

“Ndonyaya dziripo imiwe ndizvo zvatirikuona zvirikuitika, saka imi mongochenjerawo. Kana muchida kuitwa zvimbwasungata zverudzi irworwo zvekuiswa makasho muhuro mugonzi haa tasvika kucongress mugozoziva zvekuita aah zvinenge zvazvenyu izvo mabvuma kutengwa, mabvuma kushandiswa.”
President Mugabe said it was important that people be left to make their choices without undue influence from anyone.

“Isu tinenge tichiti vanhu ngavaregerwe vasarudze wavanoda,” he said.
“Iye zvino tinenyaya dzekugadziridza maprogrammes edu eZim-Asset, tirikutsvaga mari yekuti tisimbaradze maprogrammes iwayo zvino tinenge tichida kuti pfungwa dzedu tive pamwe chete maelections achauya.

“Mukuita basa renyika nebasa reparty wakatarisana nebasa iroro kuti ribudirire ndimo maunowonekwa nevanhu. Kwete kuti uchisevenza unenge uchiti regai ndigadzirire ndopa mari ava ndovangu, avo ndevekwaningi, ndozviripoka izvozvo. Iye zvino vamwe varikutozvirova zvipfuva vachiti tavanavo tirikuenda mberi vachationa. Vachationa vanaani?”

President Mugabe apologised for the manner in which the party’s Youth League conference held last week was disrupted by lack of organisation by those responsible and by the use of money by some Politburo and Central Committee members to influence the voting pattern.

He said such acts by the senior party members were criminal and that the money used to buy votes could have been better spent on adequately preparing for the conference that was poorly organised.

“I want to once again, to apologise for our blunders, there were many blunders in preparing for the Youth League conference and very many blunders some of them even criminal blunders in interfering with the right of the members of the Youth League to run their affairs, to make their own choice of who they preferred when the election of their own candidates for certain positions was necessary and it was only two positions,” said President Mugabe.

“Zvakazonyanya kukanganiswa ndezvekupindira kwatakaita nenzira inonyadzisa. Inonyadzisa, varume vakuru vemuPolitburo tichida kuti vataive navo isu mumoyo vasarudzwe. Takashaya mari yezvekudya, tikashaya mari yekuti tibhadhare mabus anotakura vanhu asi takawana mari yekupota tichitenga vanhu.”
The Youth League elections were for the positions of Deputy Secretary for Youth Affairs and Secretary for Administration which were eventually won by Cde Kudzai Chipanga from Manicaland and Cde Varaidzo Mupunga from Harare respectively.

President Mugabe said it was important for the different wings of the party to work in unity to ensure success of the party’s programmes, citing the resounding victory in last year’s harmonised elections as an example of what can be achieved when the members work in harmony.

“We cannot wage a fight against each other,” he said. “That destroys our unity. We are facing also the endemic enemies of hunger, disease and poverty and in some cases the ignorance also that we must rectify with more and more education and these are the evils that must be addressed by ZimAsset and those are the enemies we must fight because they affect us all, they affect our people.

“We need to uplift the standards of our people, the standards, when spread out mean their economic status, which is getting them to be wealthier than they are, getting them to be healthier than they are, getting them to be more enlightened, more highly educated than they are and getting them to be free in the environment and for them to be more capacitated generally than they are, that is the fight we must fight.

“Not to be this or that in the party or this or that in Government. When we are carrying out this fight against these evils, the people will certainly reward us at the end of it all. At the end of the day, good leadership is disciplined leadership.”