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Harare Bureau
PREPARATIONS for the 14th Zanu-PF annual national people’s conference have started with the revolutionary party tasking its commissariat department to fill in all district and provincial posts ahead of the event. The party’s secretary for administration Cde Didymus Mutasa, yesterday said the watershed event to be held in Chinhoyi in Mashonaland West province in December, was critical as it came after Zanu-PF’s crushing victory that “finished” the MDC-T.
“Preparations have started. The commissar (Cde Webster Shamu) has been tasked to tell all the provinces to elect their district officials. After that he will go to provinces to supervise the election of provincial officials in readiness for the conference. We are confident Mashonaland West will have finished constructing the conference centre by December,” he said.
The party requires $10 million for the conference centre.
Cde Mutasa said the District Coordinating Committees (DCC) that were disbanded last year, would not be re-constituted.
The watershed conference comes after Zanu-PF whitewashed the opposition MDC-T with its President Mugabe garnering 61,09 percent of the vote that gave the party an overwhelming two-thirds majority in Parliament against the MDC-T’s 33,94 percent vote.
This means Zanu-PF has 197 seats after winning 160 in elective constituencies and gaining others following the division of the 60 seats reserved for women and those elected by proportional representation in each province.
Mr Morgan Tsvangirai’s MDC-T has only 70 seats and there are two for the MDC faction led by Professor Welshman Ncube. This gives Zanu-PF just under 73 percent of the total seats in the National Assembly, but well over the two thirds majority of 180 seats. The National Assembly comprises 210 constituencies, of which Zanu-PF won 160, or more than 76 percent of the total, MDC-T won 49 and an independent candidate won one.
Cde Mutasa said the party would be celebrating and thanking party members for paying heed to President Mugabe’s call for them to overwhelmingly embrace the Bhora Mugedhi/Ibhola Egedhini concept that has so far yielded results for the party.
He said this was one of the major 13th Annual People’s Conference resolutions last December in Gweru.
“We are grateful to our people for voting for our party overwhelmingly. It now remains to us to fulfill the promises we made to them. We need to revamp our structures and deliver to people what they expect,” he said.
Cde Mutasa said the party’s national chairman Cde Simon Khaya Moyo would meet representatives of committees such as the finance, agenda, health, transport, social welfare, information and publicity among others to start work.
Cde Mutasa said the Presidium was grateful that people voted resoundingly for the revolutionary party in Masvingo, Matabeleland South, Manicaland, Mashonaland Central, East and West provinces and the Midlands, while indications were that the revolutionary party would make major inroads in Matabeleland North, Harare and Bulawayo provinces in 2018 polls. Commenting on the filling of the Vice President post that fell vacant following the death of Cde John Landa Nkomo in January this year, Cde Mutasa said it was likely to be filled during the December 2014 congress.
According to the Unity Accord of December 22 1987 between PF Zanu and Zanu PF, one of the VP posts should be filled by a senior former PF Zapu member.
“That is not likely to happen. This (December conference) is not a congress. We do business of the party as usual. It’s only at congresses that we talk about positions and filling them. Yes, there is a vacancy of the VP, so there is a need to have that filled at a congress.
“According to the party’s constitution the congress will be held in December next year. But as a party, we can bring it forward. These matters depend on the pleasure of the party to bring a congress forward,” he said.
Online Reporter