Mnangagwa booted out | Staff Reporter | Vice President and Presidential hopeful Emerson Mnangagwa is as good as booted out of his current position and consequently out of the presidential race in the ZANU PF following recommendations smuggled to the ZANU PF conference by party bigwigs.
The party youth and women’s leagues have tabled recommendations to the national conference demanding that the party returns to a previous quota system which reserves one of the Vice Presidents to a woman. Zanu PF spokesperson Simon Khaya Moyo confirmed the development after a Central Committee meeting in Harare yesterday while announcing recommendations made to the party by the provinces and party wings.
Khaya Moyo said the were resolutions made by all the provinces would be presented at the party’s 15th Annual National People’s Conference in Victoria Falls.
“All the provinces supported the President and First Secretary of the Party as the sole candidate for the position of President and First Secretary of the party and the country at the 2018 elections and beyond,” he said.
“This was the position from all the provinces. It was unanimous. The Women’s League has gone further through resolutions that were read by the National Political Commissar (Saviour Kasukuwere) that they continue to support the First Lady as secretary for the Women’s League for the current term and beyond.
“They also resolved that there was need for gender parity where they want the Zanu-PF Constitution to be aligned with the national Constitution where it says there must be 50-50 representation in all positions.
“The women also resolved that they want the party Constitution to be amended and reinstate the previous position that one of the Vice Presidents must be a woman.”
With the 1987 Unity Accord agreements still in place that one of the Vice Presidents must be from the former PF ZAPU structures, it is imperative that Mnangagwa will have to make way for the female Vice President.
The quota system making room for women was expediently discarded late last year as former Vice President Joyce Mujuru was being hounded out of the party on untested allegations of plotting to oust and kill Mugabe.
The reintroduction of the concept is a clear move to try and eliminate Mnangagwa by a faction in the fights to find President Robert Mugabe’s successor.
Zanu PF’s ambitious Young Turks, commonly referred to as the Generation 40 (G40), are said to be backing the First Lady in the war to succeed her increasingly-frail husband, and not Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa.