Zanu PF spokesperson Chris Mutsvangwa has made a fresh sensational claim that ruling party top insiders plotted to assassinate President Emmerson Mnangagwa on 23 June 2018 – just before the elections that year – during the White City Stadium grenade attack incident, saying it was an “inside job”.
This came as the succession battle between Mnangagwa and Vice-President Constantino Chiwenga has reached new dangerous levels ahead of the ruling party annual conference in Mutare to be addressed by Mnangagwa tomorrow.
Mnangagwa – who wants to extend his rule beyond his second term – has inflicted a series of heavy blows on Chiwenga of late, although the former army commander is still a major threat.In a hard-hitting question and answer session during a press briefing in Harare earlier today, Mutsvangwa launched a fresh withering attack on Chiwenga, describing him as a power-hungry and greedy “mucheka dzafa” (an opportunist), who has a sense of entitlement to rule as if he is the only one who went to war when he was not even at the Zanla battlefront until deep and late into the liberation struggle in Mozambique in 1978.
The struggle for Zimbabwe’s independence was fought mainly by Zanla and Zipra forces who were part of the Zanu and Zapu liberation movements.
Zanla fought mainly coming from Mozambique, while Zipra mostly came from Zambia.
Mutsvangwa also lambasted Chiwenga, whom he accuses of trying to topple Mnangagwa using proxies like war veterans leader Blessed Geza and the one million man march tomorrow, in his main press conference address.
Restrained by his standards, but acerbic as usual,Mutsvangwa further blasted Chiwenga for his recent stinging document – first published by The NewsHawks – on the current boiling succession and corruption issues, saying the Vice-President wanted to turn Zanu PF’s presidium into a “Kangaroo Court” but the plot subsequently boomeranged and he is now isolated in his power play sideshow.
While singing praises for Mnangagwa, Mutsvangwa’s assault on Chiwenga was devastating.
Before his sustained long blistering attack on Chiwenga – a new round of salvo after several recent searing outbursts – Mutsvangwa hailed the late Zanu chairman Herbert Chitepo, who was assassinated in 1975 in Lusaka, Zambia, for establishing strong bilateral relations with China in the 1960s when it was still a poor country and in the process meeting the architect of modern China Deng Xiaoping.
Mutsvangwa also spoke about Zanu PF’s annual conference in Mutare and the main Central Committee report taking stock of key political and economic developments within the party and country during the year.
