Open letter by Patrick Zhuwao to ANC SG on request for ANC intervention
Comrade Ace Magashule, Secretary General of the African National Congress
Luthuli House, 54 Pixley Ka Isaka Seme St, Johannesburg, 2001

Wednesday 23rd September 2020 | I write to categorically state and place on record that I do not wish or intend to re-join ZANU
PF.

I have taken the rather unusual move to write this open letter in light of public statements made by ZANU PF’s Patrick Chinamasa on Monday 21st September 2020
https://youtu.be/PjRIFn5qHRc. Chinamasa claimed that you told ZANU PF’s Obert Mpofu that I,
together with Cdes Saviour Kasukuwere and Dr Walter Mzembi, requested the ANC to intercede
on our behalf to facilitate our re-joining ZANU PF. It is so wrong to even imagine that I would be so foolish as to wish to re-join ZANU PF, which has lost all semblance of being a liberation movement and which has placed stability in the region at risk.
As indicated in my covering letter to the request for intervention written by Professor Jonathan Moyo and myself on 5th July 2020, I am concerned about how “ZANU PF is imploding and placing the security of liberation movements in Southern Africa at risk”. Professor Moyo and I trace the multiple crises in Zimbabwe to the unconstitutional takeover of state and governance institutions by the military in November 2017. The request that Professor Moyo and I made for the ANC to intervene is consistent with President Mugabe’s request to President Mbeki in August 2017 on the back of the ANC’s desire, at that time, to understand the succession issue in
Zimbabwe.

President Mugabe requested President Mbeki to persuade General Chiwenga to desist from
involving himself in civilian politics. Unfortunately, the military’s insistence on anointing Mnangagwa has culminated in the current crisis in the country, with the military now fighting to contain what is increasingly being referred to as Mnangagwa’s Korokokoza faction. Recently, the
military brazenly carried out two audacious operations against one of Mnangagwa’s closest
allies in his Korokoza faction, State Security Minister Owen Mudha Ncube;

https://twitter.com/ProfJNMoyo/status/1308418146735403011?s=03. This same tactic was
used to intimidate President Mugabe’s preferred successor, Dr Sidney Sekeremayi in June 2017
in favour of Mnangagwa. The military anointment of Mnangagwa has been an extreme disaster.
The military continues to use ZANU PF as cover for its involvement in civilian politics. It is
therefore totally untenable for any right-thinking person to ever want to re-join ZANU PF and continue to be used as, according to General Chiwenga’s lexicon, mbato; the blacksmith’s glove which is used to handle hot metal.

Can you please allow me Comrade SG to thank you most heartily for your sterling effort in the
face of ZANU PF intransigence and humbly request you to express our gratitude to the ANC
leadership for positively considering the plight of Zimbabweans and intervening appropriately.

Yours sincerely

Comrade Patrick Zhuwao

Former ZANU PF Politburo Member and Minister of Labour, Public Service and Social Welfare