Former Vice President Joice Mujuru’s Zimbabwe People First party is failing to make in roads into Matabeleland South region as would be members are resisting the party’s provincial chairman who was once an unpopular ZANU PF warlord.
Impeccable sources within the party claim that they are failing to attract new members into the party as people in the province vow that they cannot find themselves under the leadership of someone who once terrorised them leading ZANU PF violence.
People in the region accuse the party’s provincial chairman Jabulani Mathuthu for carrying brutal attacks on villagers in the Gwanda and Beitbridge areas in the run up to the 2008 general elections and the aborted Presidential run off.
One Mujuru aspirant who is a member of the Tendai Biti led People’s Democratic Party said that while he is being attracted by Mujuru’s prospects, he can never be find himself working under the leadership of Mathuthu who he accuses of murdering innocent people in his ZANU PF days.
“While I may be attracted to joining Mujuru to bring down Mugabe, unfortunately I can’t bless the leadership of murderers like Mathuthu,” he said.
A colleague of Mathuthu who remained in ZANU PF and spoke on condition of anonymity said that he was shocked when Mujuru appointed Mathuthu to lead the province with the kind of history he has in the province.
“When Mathuthu lost the 2008 elections in Gwanda North he mobilised a gang of youth from the National Service behind the party leaders’ back and went on a revenge trail terrorising people in Gwanda North for not voting for him pretending to be violently campaigning for President Mugabe in the run off,” said the man.
“I can bet with my last cent Mathuthu will never win even a single person to Mujuru from both ZANU PF and opposition,” he said.
However, some senior Zimbabwe People First members in the province dispelled the allegations saying that Mathuthu is a changed man now working very well with people on the ground.
“You have to understand that the concept behind the party is reintegration of communities to build a new Zimbabwe and because of that people are prepared to forget all past ills and focus on the future of the country.”
“So far Mathuthu has been able to recruit a great number of very prominent politicians in the province to the party and the province is on the right track under his guidance,” said the party member asking media to contact the party’s Secretary General in Harare for an official comment.
Efforts to get a comment from Rugare Gumbo who is believed to get the party spokesperson failed at the time of writing.