ZAPU’S problems reached a new low last week.
Report by Silas Nkala
Disgruntled party members called for party leader Dumiso Dabengwa’s head if he failed to reinstate expelled Bulawayo provincial chairman, Ray Ncube.
Ncube was expelled after he wrote a letter to Dabengwa chronicling problems the party faced but was in turn accused of setting up parallel structures.
Dabengwa — the disgruntled party members charged — behaved like he owned the party, yet he was invited by Ncube when Zapu was revived in 2008.
The members met at the end of last month and passed a vote of no confidence in the party’s leadership.
Disgruntled members are calling for the nullification of Ncube’s expulsion, arguing that the party had not followed procedures in suspending him as there had been no disciplinary hearing.
“Ncube’s expulsion was done without the people’s mandate,” said one district member who spoke on condition of anonymity.
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“The majority of people in the 12 districts of Bulawayo are against Ncube’s expulsion and we will fight along with him. If president Dumiso Dabengwa and the National People’s Council (NPC) chairman Isaac Mabuka, do not want to work with Ncube, they must go themselves.”
Dabengwa could not be reached for comment last week.
But Mabuka however, stuck to his guns, insisting that the NPC had a right and mandate to expel errant members.
“The NPC has agreed that Malambani Dube acts as the chairman at the moment, as the party prepares to elect a new substantive chairman,” Mabuka said.
“All the party’s district executive members are behind the new chairman and I do not know who you are referring to as against the NPC’s decision to expel Ncube.”
Dube confirmed he was at the helm of the province following Ncube’s expulsion.
“You know that our former chairman has been expelled and the NPC agreed to endorse me as an acting chairman for now.
“According to what I know following the meeting held this week by the NPC to appoint me, no one is opposed to my appointment,” he said. Zapu has been lurching from one crisis to the next, amid reports that it was struggling to pay its rentals.
