Shyleen Mtandwa | Troubled Zimbabwe People First President Joyce Mujuru is headed for more trouble as allegations emerge that she plans to impose her close ally as National Executive members of the party.
Discontent in the party came after a list of people purported to be earmarked to be “elected” into in top six positions was leaked in the social media.
Mujuru failed to do justice to the leaked information when she all but confirmed the list by driving party members to accept the aged trio of Ambassador John Mvundura, Samuel Sipepa Nkomo and Dzikamai Mavhaire as her First and Second Vice Presidents and National Chairman respectively.
Mujuru made the matter obvious when she told party members in a poorly attended rally in Bulawayo that as party President she will not be able to work with a young Vice President who will need orientation but would prefer elderly persons who have been in politics for many years.
The party goes for its inaugural elective congress within the next few weeks and a list of the top six officials who are going to be “voted” for at the Congress was last week leaked out of the party’s closets by a social media political analyst code naming himself “The Fox.”
The list puts Mujuru as the President deputised by her elders Ambassador Mvundura and Sipepa Nkomo with equally aged Dzikamai Mavhaire taking the National Chairmanship position an arrangement which has been heavily criticised by people within and outside the party.
Current Presidential spokesperson Gift Nyandoro formerly with the Tendai Biti led PDP is listed as the potential Secretary General while Mujuru’s most loyal supporter Bulawayo Provincial Chairlady Pastor Esnath Bulayai is expected to come in as the party Treasurer General.
Political commentators and analysts have already tagged the proposed leadership of the party as the weakest that the new party could have come up with in comparison to the leadership in the other political parties in the country.
The commentators are lambasting Mujuru for fighting to remove Mugabe who she accuses of old age and claiming to have failed to work with founding elders Rugare Gumbo and Didymus Mutasa for their age yet she has roped in the three veteran politicians of similar advanced age to be her immediate right hand people.
Several analysts who commented on Mujuru’s team described her as exhibiting signs of leadership insecurity on her part forcing her to want to rely and hide behind the influence of the old politicians.
A source within the party who spoke to ZimEye.com said that the team of six which Mujuru was building was designed by Mujuru and Mavhaire who are literally running the party on their own. The source said the team was not built on merit but on specific design by the two and Sipepa Nkomo who joined them at a later stage.
According to the source Mavhaire picked his long standing friend and colleague in ZANU PF Ambassador Mvunduru for the first Vice President position while he brought in Sipepa Nkomo who he recruited into to the party on a specific promise for Vice Presidency.
The source further reveals that in the scheming, Sipepa Nkomo was given a chance to pick one of his former PDP members into the top six where on he hand picked Nyandoro to be the Secretary General. The reliable source said that Nkomo’s initial choice was former PDP Deputy National Chairman Washington Sibanda but was turned down by the caucus as the Secretary General position was “reserved” for someone from Harare Province which saw Nyandoro as the obvious choice to come in with Sipepa Nkomo.
Sibanda has since been set up to be appointed as the Deputy National Chairman by Mujuru at the Congress according to the source.
In her own reserved appointment gap Mujuru is reported to have then picked on her long standing loyal backer Bulayai who is currently the Bulawayo Provincial Chairlady to the position of Treasurer General.
According to the source Mavhaire has already completed marketing the arrangement into the provinces and the set up is guaranteed of getting at least seven provinces nominating them unopposed for endorsement at the upcoming congress.
According to the proposed party electoral rules a person nominated by at least six of the ten provinces into the top six of the party is automatically elected into the position. Mavhaire’s planned campaign is said to have failed to get through into Mashonaland Central, Mashonaland East and Matabeleland South provinces where the provincial chairpersons are reported to have outrightly rejected the imposition of the candidates into the members.