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Bulawayo Bureau
AXED war veterans chairperson Mr Jabulani Sibanda has made false claims that Zanu-PF collapsed the national chairperson’s post to prevent him from occupying the position where he faced no challenger ahead of the party’s 2014 congress.

Sibanda made the claims while addressing journalists at the Bulawayo Press Club last Thursday and was yesterday quoted in the private media repeating the same claims.

“As you know, I was also the last person to be nominated Zanu-PF national chairman at a time that I was the national chairman of the war veterans.

“Because they feared me, they abolished the position . . . because no one could have stood up against me. That’s a fact,” Sibanda was quoted as saying.

The Zanu-PF Secretary for Information and Publicity, Cde Simon Khaya Moyo, yesterday declined to comment on Sibanda’s claims.

However, contrary to Sibanda’s claims that he was the only contender for the party chairmanship, fellow member of fired Vice President Joice Mujuru’s cabal and then Secretary of Administration Mr Didymus Mutasa had already expressed interest in the post, which was held at the time by Cde Khaya Moyo.

Speaking to The Chronicle in August, 2014, Sibanda said he needed to first consult the senior party leadership including Mutasa before responding to calls from fellow freedom fighters to throw his hat into the race for the chairmanship.

This was after a meeting of war veterans in Gwanda where the former freedom fighters persuaded, and not nominated Sibanda to join the race.

In fact, no nominations were made towards the 2014 congress for either the chairmanship position or the two Vice Presidents with provinces only endorsing President Robert Mugabe as the party’s leader.

Contacted for comment at the time, Sibanda confirmed being approached to join the race but insisted that the party was not short of people to occupy the post.

“A lot of people have spoken to me about that, and yes, Zanu-PF has never been short of a national chairperson. We have one now who is in transition and there are millions of Zanu-PF supporters who can be national chairman,” said Sibanda.

One of the war veterans leading a campaign at the time for Sibanda to join the chairperson’s race, Cde Jabulani Phetshu Sibanda, said the then war veterans chairman qualified to be national chairman considering the amount of work he put in campaigning for Zanu-PF in the run up to the 2013 elec- tions.

Cde Phetshu Sibanda said no one among the senior party leaders from PF-Zapu at the time had indicated interest in the post, paving the way for Sibanda to take up the post.