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Tendai Mugabe Harare Bureau
Zanu-PF Mashonaland West provincial executive has passed a vote of no-confidence in War Veterans Minister Cde Chris Mutsvangwa and recommended his expulsion from the revolutionary party. However, some of those said to have signed the petition have distanced themselves from the action.
Mashonaland West deputy provincial chair Cde Keith Guzah yesterday told journalists in Harare that Cde Mutsvangwa was found guilty of gross misconduct, disloyalty and treachery following his utterances in the media where he was quoted as saying: “We will always respect the institution of marriage and he (Cde Saviour Kasukuwere) is confused and conflating the institution of marriage and that of the State.”
Cde Guzah said Cde Mutsvangwa’s utterances were mischievous and deliberately intended to insult the First Family with the consequence of undermining the authority of the President and bringing the party into disrepute.
Asked to comment on the vote of no confidence Cde Mutsvangwa said:
“The President spoke about the issue of votes of no confidence at the party’s Central Committee meeting and when he was opening the conference in Victoria Falls. As an appointee of the President I will neither qualify nor subtract what my President has said. You better ask those who have issues with what the President has said.”
Cde Guzah said: “The Zanu-PF Mashonaland West provincial co-ordinating committee chaired by Mashonaland West provincial chairman Cde Ephraim Chengeta, passed a vote of no confidence in Cde Chris Mutsvangwa and recommended that he be forthwith expelled from the party and recalled from Parliament.
“We find Cde Chris Mutsvangwa’s utterances about ‘conflating the institution of marriage and that of the State’ to be exactly the same in meaning and import as the outrageous ‘bedroom coup’ remarks that got Jabulani Sibanda expelled from the party,” he said.
Cde Guzah refused to divulge the names and number of party members who have signed the petition to pass the vote of no confidence but referred questions to Cde Chengeta whose mobile phone was not reachable.
However, one of the people said to have appended their signatures on the petition, Cde Peter Chanetsa, distanced himself from it.
He said he was made to believe that the paper he signed for was for senior provincial members who were going to attend the party’s recent conference in Victoria Falls.
Cde Chanetsa said Cde Mutsvangwa was a Presidential appointee and as such could not be suspended by lower structures.
“I didn’t sign any petition,” he said.
“(Cde) Mutsvangwa isn’t a member of the Mashonaland West provincial executive. He’s a Politburo member and a Minister appointed by the President.
“If you say you’re passing a vote of no confidence in such a person you’re literally passing a vote of no confidence in the President who appointed him.
“The problem that we’re facing now is that the party is riddled with crooks. They want to eliminate senior members from the party for self-enrichment,” said Cde Chanetsa.
Cde Guzah said Cde Mutsvangwa’s remarks on the party’s commissariat department also displayed gross indiscipline.
“Cde Chris Mutsvangwa’s shocking and widely publicised utterances should, therefore, attract the same judicial review in terms of the party’s constitution and must suffer the same consequences as did Jabulani Sibanda’s insolent remarks.”
In The Standard newspaper of December 6, 2015, Cde Mutsvangwa was quoted as saying: “There is a crying poverty of institutional memory in the commissariat department. That’s why the party is resorting to arbitrary votes of no confidence. I’m proud of them (war veterans) for reminding the party leadership that decisions made at Congress should be implemented. The war veterans are right. We fought for democracy and people should be seen exercising it.”
For these remarks, Cde Guzah said, Cde Mutsvangwa was offside as his comments were in contrast with the Politburo decision of November 25.
Online Reporter