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President Mugabe

Tendai Mugabe Senior Reporter
Senior Zanu-PF leaders angling to succeed President Mugabe risk expulsion if they continue fanning factionalism in the party at the expense of delivering to the electorate, the President has said.
In an in interview with ZBC to mark his 90th birthday, President Mugabe said no individual was bigger than the party and his retirement was not yet due.

ZBCTv airs the interview tonight.

He said it was “terrible even to have your name mentioned as leader of a faction. It is shameful”.

The President’s remarks come in the wake of reports of severe jockeying among factions in Zanu-PF purportedly led by Vice President Joice Mujuru and Secretary for Legal Affairs Cde Emmerson Mnangagwa to succeed him.

Cdes Mujuru and Mnangagwa deny leading factions.

The President slammed senior party members who promote regionalism and tribalism by imposing themselves as provincial godfathers ahead of the party’s provincial chairpersons.

“That is what we are fighting against and I am going to fight against this one quite blatantly because that is what is destroying the party,” he said.

“The party is greater than any individual and it is wrong — completely wrong tactics and wrong system that recognises those of us who are in the executive of the party, the Politburo, Central Committee, to still have the right to be leaders of provinces.

“Ndini mukuru. Mukuru kuManicaland ndiyani? Mukuru kuprovince iyi ndiyani and all that is nonsensical and rubbish! That is what is destroying the party. Once wada hukuru hwekuprovince ikoko vamwe vanozotsvagawo kuda hukuru hwekumaprovince avo. That is regionalism now that you are creating.

“You are a national leader, remain a national leader. Kwete kuzoti ndiri mukuru kuprovince. KuProvince we have provincial chairmen. They will respect you if you come from that province yes, but kwete kuti ndiwe politically wamukuru ikoko aiwa.

“There is a contradiction. In fact it is not like that in the party constitution. The chairpersons of the provinces must be the bosses of the provinces and not national leaders in the Politburo and those must cease to be leaders of provinces immediately.

“Anyone who purports to be a leader of a province then must forfeit his leadership of the party.

“That is a serious matter now. You have members of the Politburo wanting to detect and determine the direction of political events in the provinces where you have already a provincial leadership that must do so and all we have said in the party is that members of the executive of the party in the Politburo, those in the Central Committee, those in Parliament can meet together with the provincial leadership in what we call a coordinating committee.

“The chairperson of that meeting is the provincial chairperson. He will preside over it and must not be dictated to, but you have gurus of the provinces, you see, who want to wield a dip stick. No. That is wrong.”

President Mugabe said he does not buy the idea of factionalism because it divides the party.

He said leaders should seek to fulfill the desires and aspirations of people from all 10 provinces.

“I do not just like the idea of a leader seeking being liked by some, much more than by others, aaah,” he said.

“You could stand there, all must be alike you too. You have people you work with, you must be closer to them.

“But never allow yourself to be called a leader of a faction. Ndopavari kukakanganisa ipapo. And you go into Government, suppose you win because you were in this province, this province supporting you mamwe maprovinces ese aya anenge achizoita work against you.

“They become an opposition within your party. You see the danger there is. We are having to fight this apparently without very much of success because people want to be seen first and foremost as regional leaders and not as national leaders.”

President Mugabe said there was no need to talk about succession now before he retired.

He said his retirement was not due and the moment people started to raise such issues that would divide the party.

President Mugabe said it was not his desire to leave Zanu-PF disintegrated.

“But why should it (succession) be discussed when it is not due? Is it due?,” he said. “The leadership still exists that runs the country. In other words I am still there.

“The people can discuss it if they want, but the moment they start discussing it they go into factions and then you find the party dividing itself and so why discuss it when it is not due?

“When the day comes and I retire, yes, sure, the day will come, but I do not want to leave my party in tatters. I want to leave it intact,” he said.

President Mugabe said people were elected into leadership because of their ability to deliver on expectations of the people.

He said people should be allowed to choose their leaders freely and a good leader should be able to unite people across all the country’s provinces.

“We do not want selfish people,” he said. “You do not want to come into leadership because you want to serve your own personal interests, you come into leadership because the people would want you to serve their interests.

“This is it and that is why some of us never campaigned for that leadership or for any position at all. We left it to the party to decide. So it was, but nowadays, oh no, you must have your people. It is a people belonging to so and so.

“You must go beyond that and say no you belong to the people as a whole. You are member of the party and all the other members become if you are going to be a leader, your people who will look up you for the necessary helpful benefits that they expect from the leadership by way of their being empowered but then what you see is I do not know what it is.

“It is a selfish way of approaching the leadership issue. You must have guys kumayouths, kumawomen and so on vanondisupporter. That is absolutely wrong. If I have people I say these are my people, ndivo vangu ava.

“Ko vamwe ndevani? You are already dividing the party. Be there objectively. If you have talents, the people will see those talents ah so and so ndiye ane attitude yatiri kuona, ndiye anokwanisa kubatanidza vanhu uyu.

“Unite the people. His attitude, kwese kwese he is not tribalistic, regionalistic but as one looks at the present position I do not know whether it is the politics of the day.

“Zvinotonyadza. Capacity to govern is not just the fact of your having got a degree or degrees, it is not just the fact of your being a member of the party with a record of having participated in it. That record must show that you have not been tribalistic, you have not been regionalistic, you can be relied upon by each and every province to take up their cause, their own geographical interests that their children will be educated in the same way as the children of the people of the province from which you are born. All people matter. That is why our independence makes us equal. All must have equal opportunity.”

President Mugabe said the Smith regime did not recognise equality and would always perceive whites to be better people who wsere closer to God.

“They thought they were the most important people next to God although they were doing ungodly things, but they still thought they were a better people,” he said.

“Our people were heathens, they did not believe in Christianity. They brought Christianity to us well. We took up Christianity and we learnt its tenets and we tried now to relate their actions to the tenets which they brought us we find quite a contradiction, love your neighbhour but they were spitting on us, they were suppressing us, regarding us as next to their dogs and so we said well you could not be Christians in action and you can see even as now they apply sanctions on us. Their capacity to lie, capacity to tell lies whole lies as the truth and they do that quite openly. We cannot do that. Kwatiri aaa kuvatema tinganzi tinotaura nhema zvedu but to be a liar to the same extend that the whites have lied say on Iraq they lied, on Libya and use that to attack them”
In Zimbabwe, President Mugabe said, a leader had to be honest and upright.