Zanu-PF will stop at nothing in firing errant Members of Parliament as the party is ready and on solid ground to win any by-election, national political commissar Mr Saviour Kasukuwere has said. Kasukuwere told The Herald recently that the revolutionary party would not be blackmailed by people who think that if certain legislators were fired from the party, then the party would lose those seats.
This comes amid ‘misguided and unsubstantiated’ claims that people in Hurungwe West, whose representative in the National Assembly Temba Mliswa was fired from the party last week, were fully behind him.
He was sent packing on an array of charges ranging from insubordination, extortionist behaviour, denigrating party leadership and disruption of party meetings.
Also expelled was Headlands legislator Mr Didymus Mutasa, who was also Zanu-PF former secretary for administration. Their expulsion rendered their seats vacant and by-elections would be conducted in the two constituencies.
Mr Kasukuwere said the party was not afraid of by-elections and as such would not entertain unruly and defiant members.
“We do not accept arrogance in the party. We will not be blackmailed by people who say if you remove so and so in our constituency we will dump the party or we will not vote for the party.
We cannot have the party image damaged like that. We will continue to defend our territory and we will win any election that come our way.” he said.
Mr Kasukuwere said disciplinary proceedings would be instituted against anyone who violated the party constitution regardless of position.
“We have disciplinary channels that are followed to clean the party of any rot,” he said.
“If we keep undisciplined and unrepentant cadres in the party then we are doomed for disaster. We want a leadership that instills discipline and thus to say we are not going to hesitate to remove anyone who thinks that it is his or her right to misbehave.”
Mr Mliswa was the first provincial chairman to receive a no-confidence vote in the run up to the 6th National People’s Congress for aligning himself with former Vice President Joice Mujuru faction that was plotting to unseat President Mugabe. He remained remorseless and disrupted two Zanu-PF meetings in Chinhoyi and Karoi in the past three weeks.
Mr Mutasa was part of the same small group and has threatened to take Zanu-PF to court, challenging the outcome of last year’s December Congress which left him in the cold.
He dismally lost Central Committee elections in his Makoni Central district and subsequently failed to make it into the Politburo.
In dismissing him, the Politburo described him as unrepentant as he continued issuing statements that denigrated the party and its leadership.-herald