By Energy Mutodi
Harare, Zimbabwe(News of the South)-ZANU PF national political commissar Saviour Kasukuwere is in his last days at the helm of the party’s commissariat department after at least six provinces recommended his expulsion from the party recently.
The commissariat organ is responsible for membership mobilization; a role that involves organizing people and setting up the party’s grass-roots structures.
Instead of following the wishes of the people and at least stick to the party’s constitution in discharging his duties, Kasukuwere who is nick-named Tyson for his careless combative behavior has been accused of fanning factionalism and even pruning the structures of his perceived enemies while promoting his loyalists with the aim of earning support for his own rise to presidency.
It is now an open secret that the young and hugely built politician, famous for describing the country’s war veterans as a bunch of drunkards and taxi drivers wants to be president.
He has been manipulating party structures to drum up support for his own candidature to become Mugabe’s successor at the party’s mooted Extra-Ordinary Congress that the party president hinted could happen anytime before the 2018 elections.
Ever since First Lady Grace Mugabe entered the political scene at the end of the year 2014, a G40 faction suddenly emerged and purportedly declared its loyalty to her as a way of stealing Mugabe’s favor.
The G40 faction was a brain child of Professor Jonathan Moyo who partnered Saviour Kasukuwere and Vice President Phelekezela Mphoko in a bid to block Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa from succeeding President Mugabe.
Riding on the strength of their proximity to the powerful First Lady, the G40 faction went on a rampage; removing all perceived Mnangagwa supporters from their party positions and replacing them with unelected loyalists.
At least eight party provincial chairpersons were therefore removed on fictitious allegations of plotting against the First Lady who since the year 2014 became the Women’s League boss.
Upon Grace’s entry into politics, Jonathan Moyo saw her as an ideal weapon to fight Mnangagwa, his rivalry with him having developed as far back as the year 2004, when he accused him of not saving his political skin after a botched attempt to catapult Mnangagwa to the Vice President seat.
Moyo had organized a meeting of party provincial chairpersons to meet in his Tsholotsho constituency and declare their support for Mnangagwa to take up the seat that had been left vacant following the death of Simon Muzenda.
Unfortunately Mugabe did not want Mnangagwa to take up the seat at the time, preferring a less powerful candidate Joice Mujuru whom he believed would be less than a threat to him.
Following the Tsholotsho meeting that was later to be called the Tsholotsho declaration, Mugabe mercilessly sacked all the provincial chairpersons who attended the meeting including Moyo himself but saved Mnangagwa whom he gave a less glamorous rural amenities ministry.
Realizing his political waterloo, Moyo who was sacked from being Minister of Information in February 2005 began to write articles praising Mugabe and fiercely criticizing the opposition MDC culminating in his re-admission to the party on October 2 2009.
However, that was not before a theory had been developed that Moyo always belongs to the wrong faction each time major political decisions must be made.
His misfortune is manifest in the current catastrophe facing his G40 group.
Sarah Mahoka and Eunice Sandi Moyo who have been bearers of the G40 faction in the Women’s League were booted out after Mugabe’s wife realized they had been plotting against her to the extend of even blocking her from assuming the post of Vice President whenever the opportunity arises.
Before the dust settled, it is now his closest ally Saviour Kasukuwere and his brother Dickson Mafios who are now facing the chop on the deadly allegation of wanting to overthrow Mugabe, that they have been using to decapitate their political foes.
History has it that anyone accused of threatening Mugabe’s firm hold to power will not survive politically.
It is now an obvious case that the politburo will be giving the Local Government Minister marching orders from the powerful post of national political commissar in the following days although he may retain his ministerial post pending a cabinet re-shuffle that normally comes soon after.
Kasukuwere’s dismissal is most likely to boost public support for Mugabe as it will atone the war veterans who have been venting their anger at him for refusing to purge the over-ambitious and foul-mouthed minister.
And in order to ascertain the party’s victory in next year’s elections, that are most likely going to be tough due to a grand coalition that opposition parties are planning, President Mugabe is most likely to appoint someone with a broader social base to succeed Kasukuwere; perhaps a veteran of the liberation struggle.
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