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Wallace Ruzvidzo Herald Reporter

ZANU PF has dismissed an article by a local newspaper that President Mnangagwa tried to save some candidates as “crying falsehoods without any shade of shame”.

This comes after the ruling party held its much anticipated and hotly contested primary elections reruns last Saturday.

The ruling party’s national spokesperson Cde Christopher Mutsvangwa told The Herald yesterday that the internal polls had been conducted in the highest degree of competitiveness and transparency as directed by the Party’s First Secretary President Mnangagwa.

To this effect, Cde Mutsvangwa said, the party would not undermine enunciated rules and regulations to perpetrate favouritism.

“It is none other President Mnangagwa who directed his Politburo to conduct open and competitive voting of the party primaries.

“He deliberately withheld any patronage which would have shielded prominent party figures.

“This in line with his impeccable democratic credentials as a legal advisor to ZANU at the 1979 Lancaster House Conference,” he said.

Cde Mutsvangwa said the ruling party would not tolerate any efforts to undermine its democracy.

“By his nature, President Mnangagwa will not undermine enunciated rules and regulations to favour one member of the party against another.

“We thus frown upon any attempts to soil or besmirch the democratic pedigree of President EDM,” he said.

President Mnangagwa, he said, was an astute leader who understood the importance of free and fair elections.

“A momentous decision was made that the Zimbabwe national liberation movement will accept free and fair elections as the final step to decolonization.

“President Mnangagwa was in the team that opted for ‘ballot to office‘. Though within grasp of decisive military victory, the route of bullet to office was stood down in favour of a national plebiscite to freedom and independence,” he said.

“The democratic ethos of President Mnangagwa and his Zanu PF are a far cry chicanery and skullduggery that is shrouding one-man Chamisa‘s CCC candidate selection,” he said.