Chombo warns disruptive elements

ZANU-PF members should direct energy towards winning next year’s elections, and those denigrating the ruling party’s policies will face disciplinary action, a senior official has said.

In an interview on Friday, Zanu-PF National Secretary for Administration Dr Ignatius Chombo warned that those engaging in “petty personal fights” would face action if they failed to reform and join progressive members in strategising a winning formula for the 2018 elections.

The comments follow Zanu-PF Politburo member Professor Jonathan Moyo’s sustained attacks of Command Agriculture, a programme proposed by First Lady Amai Grace Mugabe and adopted by Government.

Prof Moyo has also granted “interviews” to the private media and made social media posts in which he attacks Vice-President Emmerson Mnangagwa, who is spearheading the Special Maize Import Substitution Programme (Command Agriculture).

President Mugabe has not only warned party officials from using social media to discuss internal matters, but has also called Command Agriculture “beautiful” after Prof Moyo labelled it “ugly”.

A fortnight ago in Masvingo, President Mugabe sent a strong message to “negative” officials, saying they should leave the party.

Command Agriculture looks to be a roaring success with a bumper food crop harvest expected, and Government has extended the programme and has secured more than US$500 million in public-private partnerships for the next phase of its implementation.

Speaking to The Sunday Mail, Dr Chombo said party members who diverted attention from the goal of winning next year’s election would face disciplinary action. “Without mentioning names, I want to call on party members to remain focused on our main goal which is to win next year’s election,” he said.

“There has been a tendency by some of our members to focus on petty personal fights that at the end of the day do not achieve anything, but make us divert our attention from the main goal.

“From now on, our goal should be on winning elections and not to focus on those petty issues and we need to be clear as a party that those who want to divert attention from the main issues will be disciplined.”

Zanu-PF’s Secretary for Administration said the party would address all pending disciplinary issues before the polls.

“I do not think there are many such cases left but the plan is to go for the election with a clean bill of health. The Politburo will continue to look at all such cases and make sure that we go for an election without any diseases,” he said.

Dr Chombo urged Zanu-PF members to heed President Mugabe’s advice to remain disciplined.

“Our President has been very clear that we need to focus on winning the election,” said Dr Chombo. “We do not need to spend our time on petty differences. We need to have order, discipline and focus, like what the President has said.”

Dr Chombo also said Zanu-PF was conducting a head count of its supporters to estimate the number of potential voters.

“It is part of our restructuring and we want every member to start from the cell. We are restructuring from the cell so that people will be based in their voting centres and we will have estimate numbers of people who will vote for us.

“We have done much of the work already and this is our guarantee as party of knowing our voters. “By the time elections come, we should be knowing our numbers very well.”

Dr Chombo said Zanu-PF was confident of winning next year’s elections and was targeting a 90 percent share of the vote.