President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s special adviser and leader of the Zimbabwe National War Veterans Association Christopher Mutsvangwa is now playing the war veterans card after losing the party’s primary elections.
Mutsvangwa lost to Langton Mutendereki by 120 votes and now claims Mnangagwa could lose the elections because war veterans are disgruntled at the way the primary elections were conducted.
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He lashed out at national political commissar Engelbert Rugeje, also a war veteran, for being a political novice and claimed that Rugeje had sought advice from a disgruntled former commissar Webster Shamu.
“The new national commissar, while he is a comrade, lacks the party’s institutional memory and failed to handle this issue well, leading to the disenfranchisement of thousands of party members countrywide,” Mutsvangwa was quoted by Newsday as saying.
“ZANU-PF’s problem has always been the abuse of the office of the political commissar and we are seeing this again,” he said.
“So, as war veterans, just as we did during the Mugabe era, given a choice between a party that has lost through acts of omission or commission its fiduciary role, then we will be left with no choice but to go with the people….
“The first line of protest is our election agents, who refused to sign the results and secondly that the war veterans countrywide, who have declared that they will choose the people instead of the party if forced into making a choice…
“I am under pressure because the war veterans feel that something is going wrong again with the party’s commissariat department.”
