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From George Maponga in Masvingo
The Zanu-PF Masvingo provincial leadership has warned that the party will not tolerate imposition of candidates in the forthcoming party primary elections ahead of 2018 harmonised elections.

Zanu-PF provincial chairman Cde Ezra Chadzamira said imposition of candidates would hurt the ruling party’s chances of maintaining its stranglehold on the Masvingo political landscape, where it currently occupies all the 26 House of Assembly seats.

Addressing party members drawn from across the province during the Zanu-PF Masvingo provincial inter-district conference held at the weekend, Cde Chadzamira said people should be allowed to freely choose their leaders.

“As we go for our primary elections, I want to make it very clear that we will not allow imposition of candidates and I am very happy that even the national leadership of the party led by President Emmerson Mnangagwa has already made it clear that imposition of candidates will not be allowed.

“We will make sure that during our primary elections people will be allowed to choose leaders of their choice because we want leaders who come from the people.

“We want Masvingo Province to maintain its ‘one-party state’ status by retaining all the 26 House of Assembly seats,’’ said Cde Chadzamira.

He urged ruling party members to promote unity in the party by forgiving members who were misled into supporting the vanquished G40 cabal.

Cde Chadzamira said the G40 cabal was dead and buried and will never resurrect, urging members who were sitting on the fence to embrace the new political dispensation that saw President Mnangagwa ascending into office.

“Let’s forgive some of our members who were supporting the G40 cabal, some of them were blindly supporting that faction, so in order for us to forge unity in our party and win elections resoundingly, we must forget some of the G40 members, but we must not forget what they did,’’ he said.

“I want to urge those who are sitting on the fence, thinking that there will be a miracle come back by the G40 cabal, that will never happen; the new political dispensation is irreversible. G40 is buried, it is dead and will never come back.’’

The Zanu-PF Masvingo provincial chairman paid tribute to the ruling party members in the province for standing by President Mnangagwa from the time he was Vice-President of the country.

Cde Chadzamira said Masvingo, together with the Midlands Province took a lot of flak before the advent of the new political dispensation for supporting President Mnangagwa.

“The people of Masvingo do not usually backtrack whenever they make a decision to do something. I want to applaud all ruling party members in the province for standing by President Mnangagwa.

“At one time when the political atmosphere was really hot, we were ridiculed by the former First Lady Mrs Grace Mugabe, who dared us to choose our own President after being miffed by our support for President Mnangagwa and here we are today, President Mnangagwa is now in power,’’ said Cde Chadzamira.

He urged ruling party members to galvanise party structures and campaign for President Mnangagwa and the ruling party ahead of the forthcoming elections.

The Zanu-PF chair said President Mnangagwa was a tried-and-tested revolutionary, who was one of the few surviving pioneers of the liberation struggle, having joined the liberation struggled as a teenager.

Cde Chadzamira said President Mnangagwa abhorred tribalism and wanted to create a Zimbabwe where every person thrived in peace and harmony, irrespective of tribal origins.

“President Mnangagwa is not a tribalist and even the configuration of the new Zanu-PF presidium testifies to that. We should mobilise support for our President and the ruling party so that we garner a crushing win in the coming elections,’’ said Cde Chadzamira.

He said the ruling party leadership in Masvingo wanted more people to register under the Biometric Voter Registration exercise to enable them to vote for President Mnangagwa and Zanu-PF in the coming elections.