Harare, Zimbabwe (News of the South)-The storm in ZANU PF has refused to abate with Prof Jonathan Moyo refusing to back down from his seeming attacks upon the person of VP Emmerson Mnangagwa during his SAPES Policy Dialogue lecture recently.
Moyo who questioned Mnangagwa’s supposed seniority and expected assumption of power after President Mugabe whilst lauding Defence Minister Sydney Sekeramayi has further strengthened his earlier remarks describing as “fools all who think seniority is about positions”
The divisive Professor who has been hogging the limelight on social media after the lecture pointed to history to strengthen his point.
“Historians must help us. Seniority is not position based or position-determined, its who joined, the struggle first”
“And to the facts; Dr Sydney Sekeramayi was in the NDP, Zapu’s predecessor, which deployed him in Scandinavia. He was in Tanganyika in 1962”, he said.
Moyo’s SAPES lecture has further worsened the factional rift which has strained Zanu PF as the revolutionary party struggles to deal with the advanced age of President Mugabe and the seemingly muddled process that will see to the coming in of a new leader.
Though they are stipulations governing the succession issue in the party and the country, Zanu members have gone ahead and made the whole issue a poisonous process that is threatening the progress of the whole country as politicians battle each other for strategic placement.
President Mugabe, who is New York to attend a summit on oceans has been equally emphatic in calling for peace and unity in then party whilst delivering vague succession statements that have served to iron out nothing.
Prof Moyo has however accused the Lacoste camp, supposedly led by VP Mnangagwa, of being ‘successionists’ who instead of working for the advancement of the country are busy crafting sinister plans to take over after Mugabe and impose a Command style of leadership.
According to Moyo the predecessor of the evil Lacoste plans is the Command Agriculture Programme, which he has been bashing repeatedly.
Speaking at the SAPES lecture Moyo dismissed the almost universal assumption that Mnangagwa is the senior figure in Zanu and should succeed Mugabe.
“The brazen claim by the so-called Team Lacoste that VP Mnangagwa is the most or only senior leader below President Mugabe is false”
“Dr Sekeramayi’s consensus style of engaging, loyalist and nationalist leadership is infectious, once you encounter”, he said sparking the political inferno that is currently engulfing the party.
Speaking on social media Moyo has however dismissed the attacks arguing that he is entitled to his views.
“The notion that anyone should be disciplined for not supporting VP Mnangagwa’s successionist bid is plainly idiotic”, he said dismissively.
Adding state media publication The Herald, which carried an article in which various analysts attacked his views Moyo accused them of using expelled Zanu member to prop up a silly argument.
“Successionists using renegades expelled from ZANU PF or who are not ZANU PF ro defend ZANU PF”
In the while VP Mnangagwa is yet to respond to the seeming attacks.
About Author
