Goche accepts card-carrying member status Cde Goche
Cde Goche

Cde Goche

Tendai Mugabe Senior Reporter
Zanu-PF Politburo member Cde Nicholas Goche, recently implicated in the plot to assassinate President Mugabe, yesterday said he accepted his new status as an ordinary card-carrying member after he decided not to tender his application for a Central Committee position. Cde Goche told The Herald that he had no intention of leaving the revolutionary party despite the nasty assassination reports that had ripped his image.

After the assassination plot was exposed, Cde Goche voluntarily decided not to seek re-election in the zanu-pf Central Committee after serving in the powerful organ for 20 years.

He did not indicate if he was still interested in his Cabinet brief where he is serving as the Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare Minister.
Cde Goche said his decision not to seek re-election was voluntary and was aimed at keeping unity in the party ahead of its 6th National People’s Congress that is starting next week. He denied reports that he ran for “dear” life in Bindura on Sunday after party youths blocked him from submitting his CV for a Central Committee position.

Cde Goche said his political career was not more important than unity in the party’s Mashonaland Central Province.
“Why should I leave zanu-pf?” he asked. “Are you telling me that all people who are in zanu-pf are Central Committee members?

“On Sunday I actually chaired the Provincial Congress Co-ordinating Committee meeting and when people were submitting their CVs for Central Committee I told (Cde Saviour) Kasukuwere that I was not submitting mine.

“I said I am doing this on the principle that I want to maintain unity in the party as we prepare to go to the Congress. I said we should not go to Congress as a divided lot and my political career is not important to surpass the essence of unity in the party.

“I told (Cde) Kasukuwere that I was going to attend a funeral and I did not run away from the meeting.
“I have been in the Central Committee for 20 years and I want to thank people for that.”

It is understood that on Saturday when Cde Goche was confronted by President Mugabe during a Politburo meeting regarding the assassination plot, he later told fellow Politburo members that he was going to quit.

It was not clear whether he was referring to quitting zanu-pf or Government and where he was destined to.
Cde Goche said: “I did not talk to anyone after the Politburo meeting and think it is not fair for you to report that I spoke to a nameless Politburo member.
“Give me the name of that Politburo member whom I told that I want to quit.”

Cde Goche, who had no liberation war credentials but served in Government at the benevolence of President Mugabe, lost favour with authorities after he was implicated in the President’s assassination plot.

“It is alleged that Cde Goche met potential hit-men in Israel and South Africa to explore the assassination possibilities. He reportedly used the cover of official Government business in Switzerland to make the stopovers and meet the potential hit-men.

In September Cde Goche told Zimbabwe Sugarcane Millers Union secretary-general Cde Edmore Hwarare at Wild Ox Club and Mteri Lodge in Chiredzi that real war was coming in the run-up to the zanu-pf Congress.

He said guns would be fired and unnamed people would be flushed down the toilet.

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