POLITICIAN Jealousy Mawarire says President Emmerson Mnangagwa should leave his loyalists to hang dry in their controversial push to extend his term to 2030 claiming that the initiative is driving a wedge through an already divided ruling party.
Mawarire was once the spokesperson of the Zimbabwe People First led by former Vice-President Joice Mujuru and National Patriotic Front that was linked to the late Robert Mugabe.
He argued that the push for the extension of the presidential term from 2028 to 2030 has resulted in illegal fund-raising activities like the move to make beneficiaries of the land reform pay US$500 for every hectare allocated to them.
Mawarire said the move to have beneficiaries of the fast-track land reform programme pay for the land they are currently occupying will generate, outside government, around US$6,6 billion that Mnangagwa’s ED2030 agenda proponents would likely use to fund the campaign to remove the presidential term limit.
The ruling Zanu PF party has long been plagued by divisions, primarily between factions loyal to Mnangagwa and those aligned to his deputy Constantino Chiwenga.
In an interview with HStv, an online tele-radio owned by Alpha Media Holdings (AMH) Mawarire accused Mnangagwa of subverting both party and national constitutions.
AMH are the publishers of daily NewsDay, weeklies The Standard and Zimbabwe Independent as well as Southern Eye.
“The President has bastardised the Land Commission by creating a parallel structure called the Land Tenure Implementation Committee,” he said.
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“He has actually continued with what he is doing in Zanu PF and has disregarded the Zanu PF constitution.
“Now he is disregarding the national Constitution.
“He has created a lot of parallel structures, Women4ED, Mahwindi4ED and this for ED.
“These structures were created outside the Constitution, but for the sole purpose of advancing nefarious activities and we are having a rogue President who is importing criminal activities that he is doing in his own party into government.”
He accused Mnangagwa of blurring the lines between State functions and party politics, using government resources to strengthen his grip on power.
“You cannot just sit arbitrarily, that is the problem with this President, and decide on national matters,” Mawarire said.
“To make matters worse, he is even taking government and State processes to his farm.
“There is no denigration of government and State processes that is worse than taking State policy announcements from the State House, Parliament or government buildings, to your own backyard and you begin to make political and policy announcements surrounded by hangers-on.
“They are not pushing for anything sensible, but they are pushing for the 2030 agenda so that they continue looting.”
Mawarire said the Land Tenure Implementation Committee was a “fundraising scheme” for Mnangagwa’s political war chest.
“The so-called Land Tenure Implementation Committee and the ideas that are coming up are purely for fundraising and no one will be criminalised for speculating that this is a form of fundraising in order to push for the 2030 agenda,” he said.
“This US$6,6 billion will be an extra ordinary war chest for Mnangagwa and his hangers-on so that they keep holding on to State power.”
He warned that its implementation could further erode trust in governance and deepen economic woes.
“So the title deeds agenda is a gimmick that has been put in place in order to fundraise for an equally illegal extension of the President’s term in office,” Mawarire said.
“ He has gone rogue, he is now touching a live wire in this thing, trying to sell land.”
Previously, Zanu PF Midlands and Masvingo provincial structures were reportedly plotting protests against critics of the campaign to extend Mnangagwa’s term limit.
According to the Constitution, Mnangagwa’s term is expected to end in 2028.
Mnangagwa has on three occasions said he will retire at the end of his constitutionally-mandated two terms.
Even if the Constitution is to be amended, the supreme law of the land sss that an office bearer cannot be a beneficiary of an amended statute.
