Editorial Comment: Beef up security around our leaders

Zanu-PF had lately become dysfunctional from the Presidium to the bottom as the then Vice-President Joice Mujuru plotted against her boss, President Robert Mugabe while her runners spoiled things on the ground.

But with the President appointing Cde Emmerson Mnangagwa to succeed her as the party’s First Vice-President and Cde Phelekezela Mphoko as Second Vice-President, the party must now regain its coherence. Both VPs are respectable and have been consistent in defending and promoting the ideals of the revolution.

In President Mugabe and Cdes Mnangagwa and Mphoko we have a strong team which will work together and sincerely to take the party and country to a new level. We congratulate the President for picking the best of the crop.

Both VPs distinguished themselves during the liberation struggle. Cde Mnangagwa has served as Cabinet Minister and Politburo member in various portfolios since 1980. Cde Mphoko is less known because he has essentially lived and worked abroad since 1987 when he joined diplomatic service. He only retired on March 31 this year to concentrate on politics as well as in nurturing his retail business.

He fought on the Zipra side and is one of the few surviving architects of the liberation war having been one of the seven commanders of the Zapu military planning committee way back in 1965. He is widely respected for his liberation credentials and post-independence work.

However, we are worried that a few hours before probably the greatest moment of his political career on Wednesday, Cde Mnangagwa nearly met his worst.

Unknown assailants broke into his office Tuesday night and laced it with a poisonous substance. His secretary, who opened the office first on Wednesday morning, breathed in the lethal material and promptly fell sick. She spent the whole of Wednesday in hospital under intensive care.

The target was Cde Mnangagwa so that when he walked into the office in the morning ahead of the extra-ordinary Central Committee meeting at which President Mugabe appointed him and Cde Mphoko Vice-Presidents and Second Secretaries hours later, he would be sickened by the poison.

“We’re aware of people who really want to harm us, physical harm also,” the President said.

“I’m talking about what happened at our Zanu-PF offices. The office of Cde Mnangagwa was broken into last night and poisonous powder was sprinkled all over the desk and so on.

“That powder, when the door opens, is blown up and then he would have inhaled it. But it was not Mnangagwa who opened the door, it was the secretary (Catherine Magaya) who opened the door and poor girl, there she was, she inhaled it and she is a mess. She is in intensive care just now.

“Ko pamusana pei? Chatatadza chii? (Why? What wrong have we done?) Why? Why? Why? We want investigations to be done. I’m just warning you that it’s not all those who smile at us that are our friends. Take care!”

It is still too early to say since police are investigating the security breach, but the party leadership might already have suspects. There is a cabal in the party that has been scheming in recent months. The faction led by Cde Mujuru was exposed for its plan to assassinate President Mugabe. It is possessed, its thinking is primitive, its operations and tactics are mafia-like.

Well-meaning Zimbabweans demand it must be stopped. The country cannot be held to ransom by a faction whose lust for power is so extreme; whose sense of loss too excessive. Even at this stage, they still don’t want to accept that the party rejected them at congress.

Not everyone at the party headquarters is honourable, the President said. The Mujuru faction had run affairs at that place for many years and there can be a few rogue elements that are up to no good. They had become too loyal to individuals, not to the party.

We are happy the President appreciates the task at hand at the party head office.

“We’re in the driving seat and we must actually drive and not use our headquarters to plot and destroy the party,” he said on Wednesday.

“We’ve taken action on some, but we now do know how the machinery of Mai Mujuru was running through vaMutasa and others here at headquarters, but we too at the top we’ll be vigilant.”

Wednesday’s act came about two months after a break-in at Cde Mnangagwa’s government office. Around the same time there were suspicious break-ins and thefts at judges’ offices in Harare. No-one has been arrested for the crimes yet.

But those cowardly acts must not stop Zimbabweans from congratulating him and Cde Mphoko on their appointments.

The First Lady, Cde Grace Mugabe recently hailed Cde Mnangagwa for his discipline and respect for authority which he exhibited from 2004 when, despite having secured the support of six party provinces, he accepted a party decision for him to step aside for Cde Mujuru. He took less influential Politburo and Cabinet posts and continued working for the party, waiting for 10 years.

Luckily for him, and we must say luckily for Zimbabwe as well, his time came on Wednesday.