PRESIDENT Emmerson Mnangagwa is having sleepless nights over calls by Zanu PF supporters for the extension of his term of office beyond 2028, the party’s national spokesperson Christopher Mutsvangwa has said.
The ruling Zanu PF party is shaking from internal strife over attempts to push Mnangagwa’s term extension beyond the constitutionally-mandated two terms.
Mutsvangwa spent close to an hour during a Press conference at the Zanu PF headquarters, telling journalists that Mnangagwa is loved by the people.
“What I was talking about in the past 45 minutes was that the President is delivering on the mandate of prosperity, which he was given by the people of Zimbabwe, because that’s what they want.
“People of Zimbabwe do not vote for presidents so that they can nominate successors and that’s not the business of the electorate. Why can’t those who are coming from the party hold their horses? They can hold on until their time comes. There was an attempt at a premature foisting of a successor,” he said.
Mutsvangwa, who led the fight to oust late former President Robert Mugabe from office in 2017, said war veterans always acted to remove rogue leaders from power when they deviated from their constitutional mandate.
“When a time came that a leader was no longer serving a revolution, we removed them and our people support the war even when leaders were removed because they had tried to be entitled to the revolution, we dispense with such a kind of leadership. Whenever a leader tries to become bigger than the revolution, we deal with him because that is the tradition of Zanu PF,” he said.
“The reason why President Mugabe had to be removed along the way was because he had decided to create a dynasty in this country, so he was moving with his succession agenda outside the context of the Zimbabwean people.
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“He had turned his house and household into a courthouse of intrigue against the Constitution of Zimbabwe, which is what then led those who had put him in power originally, the war veterans, to remove him.
“If you begin to subvert the will of the people yourself as head of State, there is a difference between President Emmerson Mnangagwa saying I am a constitutionalist and I follow the Constitution, from Mugabe saying my wife becomes the new queen when I am gone.”
Seen as harbouring presidential ambitions, Mutsvangwa refused to disclose if he is eyeing the presidency, adding that the race to State House would be announced at the end of Mnangagwa’s term.
“What is wrong is to say let the President be succeeded today, because people were trying to push agendas of the immediate succession of the President, even when we are outside the constitutional term limits, as seen during the March 31 uprising, which you were promoting.
“When you knew that in 2028 the party would go to elections, why were you interviewing people who were trying to undermine the Constitution?” Mutsvangwa asked.
Labelling the late Mugabe, a dynastic president who sought to have his family illegally run the country, Mutsvangwa said Mnangagwa was a constitutionalist and, therefore, safe from ouster unlike his predecessor.
