BY MOSES MATENGA
THE beleaguered Zanu PF faction under the moniker G40 says it is still alive and planning the takeover of the ruling party ahead of the 2023 polls.
Several members of the G40 cabal were hounded out of Zanu PF and forced into exile following the November 2017 military coup that ousted the late former President Robert Mugabe.
Key G40 members who were against then Vice-President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s rise included Saviour Kasukuwere, Jonathan Moyo and Patrick Zhuwao, among others.
“Facts only: the overwhelming majority of G40 in Zanu PF’s leadership and membership ranks were neither expelled nor left the party after the 2017 army coup,” Moyo, a former Higher and Tertiary Education minister and Zanu PF politburo member, said on Twitter yesterday.
“They are in it. It’s precisely for this reason that the most strategic fertile ground for change in Zimbabwe is the Zanu PF base.”
Moyo claimed that Mnangagwa was imposed on the people by the army.
Mnangagwa was booted out of government and Zanu PF in November 2017 before fleeing to neighbouring South Africa, only to return and take over power after the coup.
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“People’s choice, you? Since when? The real issue is, are you still the army’s choice? Without the army, what they call G40 will finish you politically in broad daylight like it did before the 2017 military coup and in the 2018 election only for the army to rescue you,” Moyo said.
But Zanu PF spokesperson Simon Khaya Moyo yesterday dismissed the former Higher Education minister as a daydreamer.
“It’s hogwash, he can continue dreaming,” he said.
Observers yesterday supported Moyo’s claim with some former G40 kingpins saying the real Zanu PF remained within the lower ranks and other strategic positions while a few “unelectable” people allocated themselves top posts.
Norton legislator Temba Mliswa weighed in saying in its current form, the ruling Zanu PF party was at its weakest.
“Ultimately, politics is about the ground. It determines who wins. There is a protest vote coming over issues of people’s welfare and these factional differences from before. That is obvious,” Mliswa said.
“When people are tired of a certain narrative, they protest. Zanu PF has been driving social media but on the ground, it has no traction. They failed to restructure the party, betraying problems on the ground.”
Mliswa is former Zanu PF Mashonaland West provincial chairperson. He contested as an independent MP for Norton after being kicked out of Zanu PF in 2015.
After the November coup, most G40 members supported Nelson Chamisa’s MDC Alliance, hoping that the youthful opposition leader would unseat Mnangagwa in the 2018 polls, which the latter claims were rigged.
- Follow Moses on Twitter @mmatenga
