The former freedom fighters and ex-detainees have declared war against the new Harare provincial leadership and anyone else in the party who supports what they described as “fraudulent” elections and a “dubious” restructuring exercise of the province.The leaders of the district co-ordinating committee 3 (DCC3), who included mostly war veterans and ex-detainees, told the Zimbabwe Independent this week that they had formed a parallel provincial executive with Hubert Nyanhongo as the legitimate chairperson until the party’s top leadership nullifies last weekend’s hotly contested results.They said they will not vacate the district offices and dared any member of the new leadership to try and make them.Amos Midzi retained the Zanu PF provincial chairmanship after garnering 1 052 votes against Nyanhongo’s 807.Nyanhongo has since petitioned the party’s national chairman John Nkomo seeking nullification of the poll because of alleged irregularities and vote-buying. He is also challenging the restructuring exercise, which left out several districts. The 13 restructured districts in DCC3 were allegedly excluded irregularly, while several others covering Rugare, Kambuzuma, Warren Park, Dzivaresekwa and Mufakose high density suburbs were left out and barred from participating in last weekend’s elections.A total of 33 districts in Harare were allegedly barred from participating in the weekend poll. The political commissar for DCC3, Stanford Chisuko said: “We are freedom fighters and it is our revolutionary party. The objectives of the revolution should not perish to serve the interests of some individuals. I am not a supporter but a stakeholder of the party. I went to war as a young person and it pains me to watch this party being destroyed.“We have formed parallel structures. If they don’t correct this, we will operate as the 23 legitimate districts and Midzi (can stay) with his 13. We are going to fight to the end till the last man and we are going to do it in protection of the party, the revolution and the president.” But David Karimanzira, who was overseeing the restructuring exercise, said declaring parallel structures was rebellious and would be dealt with strongly by the party leadership.He said such a matter should be brought before a disciplinary committee and those refusing to vacate the offices would be removed, without stating how.“The complaints are nonsense,” he said. “They are leading a rebellion and these are the cases that should be brought before a disciplinary committee. Those that were left out refused to be part of the restructuring exercise. We can’t have that and zvakatopfuura (the elections were done and are over). Nyanhongo and the members in DCC3 wanted the same districts that participated in the December 14 2008 elections to be allowed in last weekend’s elections. Results of the December elections in which Nyanhongo had defeated Midzi in a fiercely contested election were nullified by the politburo due to intra-party violence by the feuding factions.
Faith Zaba
