HARARE (AFP) ― Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe decried “jostling” for power within his ruling ZANU-PF party Tuesday as he deepened a purge of potential successors.
“Unprecedented jostling has been going on,” the 90-year-old leader told war veterans, warning “that’s what destroys organizations” as the party met to elect its leaders.
The key elective congress ― to be attended by some 12,000 delegates ― is expected to endorse the 90-year-old Mugabe as party chief and his wife Grace as women’s league boss.
As if to underscore Grace’s rapid rise to power, conference-goers walked to the venue on a recently paved street called “Dr. Grace Mugabe Way.”
But several other major players are unlikely to retain their posts after a purge in recent weeks targeting Vice President Joice Mujuru and her allies.
Mugabe on Tuesday hit out at Mujuru, although not by name, for seeking power.
“We are experiencing it for the first time in ZANU-PF and for that matter it’s a woman who is saying I want to take over that seat,” he said.
“We know the infiltrations that has been going on. They were saying, ‘We will work with the (opposition) MDC, Britain and America.’ That simplistic thinking. You can‘t trust the white man.”
The party meets behind closed doors on Tuesday and Wednesday, with the congress moving into open session from Thursday to Saturday.
But with the ruling party set to approve amendments to its constitution to allow Mugabe to personally appoint his deputies, business was already as good as done, said analyst Rushweat Mukundu of the Zimbabwe Democracy Institute.
