President Robert Mugabe
PRESIDENT Robert Mugabe has ordered ZANU-PF members to stop bickering which has seen the party relapse into the crisis mode it experienced last year.
He gave the order whilst addressing members of the ZANU-PF Central Committee at the party’s national headquarters on Friday.
The Central Committee, which is ZANU-PF’s principal organ, met at a time when an implosion is taking place in the party amidst reports of deadly factional fights that has scaled fresh heights.
“I call for greater discipline in the party. Disciplined cadres will always respect party hierarchy. There is order in the party,” he said.
He warned errant party members against insubordination.
“We have seen lower organs and junior members challenging superiors appointed by the party to lead them. Such acts amount to insubordination and indeed a challenge to authority,” he warned.
He said the apparent rift between First Lady, Grace Mugabe and Vice President, Emmerson Mnangagwa, was a fictitious media creation.
He also said there was nothing wrong with her controversial rallies across the country adding: “I have to thank the women’s league for keeping the party together.”
He said party members must desist from leaking information to the private press saying they would only be destroying each other and exposing the party by doing so.
President Mugabe also blamed the media for fueling divisions in ZANU-PF.
The First Lady’s latest round of rallies across the country comes at a time when a fresh wave of infighting has erupted in the troubled ruling party as hawks seek to de-congest the political arena in the war
to succeed President Mugabe.
With the entry of the First Lady into politics, Mnangagwa, who was initially seen as a clear favourite to succeed the 91-year-old veteran politician, is now seen as a distant prospect.