As the succession wrangle in Zanu PF reaches fever pitch the Youth League has become a new battle ground as party bigwigs battle to control the influential party organ.
Sources in Zanu PF this week said the vice president Emmerson Mnangagwa faction has won the hearts and souls of the youth as close to eight provincial youth league chairpersons are reportedly now backing “team lacoste” which is locked in a bitter wrangle with a group of ambitious young turks known as Generation 40 (G40).
“Since the run up to the December conference in Victoria Falls the youths had shifted their allegiance to the Mnangagwa faction,” the source said.
“This has also been confirmed by the national commissar Saviour Kasukuwere in his letter to the president as reported by the Zimbabwe Independent newspaper on Friday.”
The Independent reported that Kasukuwere wrote a scathing letter to president Robert Mugabe seeking the dissolution of the Midlands provincial executive as well as the suspension of a politburo member July Moyo who is deputy secretary for administration.
In his letter Kasukuwere accuses Moyo of working closely with the youth chairpersons within the provinces as succession reaches a boiling point. Kasukuwere also wants Midlands’ Justice Mayor Wadyajena, Owen Mudha Ncube and other youth members from other provinces including Mashonaland West’ Vengi Musengi and Manicaland’ Manyengavana expelled.
G40 also wants some members of the national youth league who are said to be sympathetic to the Mnangagwa faction expelled. “Secretary for administration in the youth league, Lewis Matutu is on the verge of being booted out,” the source said. Matutu is a tough talking Mnangagwa loyalist who hails from Midlands.
Sources also said the youth leaders are very clear on their allegiance to Mnangagwa. “Just explore their whatsapp profile pictures and you will see they are all backing Mnangagwa,” said the source. “The majority of them have pictures of either Mnangagwa and Mugabe or simply a crocodile.”
