War vets give Mugabe ‘Notice’

HARARE – Disaffected war veterans, who appear to be revelling in Zanu PF’s stunning loss to Temba Mliswa in the Norton by-election, have warned President Robert Mugabe that if he contests the 2018 elections, they could once again campaign for an opposition candidate.

Forthright war vets secretary-general Victor Matemadanda also told the Daily News yesterday that ex-combatants, who played a major role in the weekend by-election, would perform “another Norton” in 2018 if Mugabe stood in those keenly-anticipated polls.

This comes after Mliswa knocked cold Zanu PF’s Ronald Chindedza to win the Norton constituency, which fell vacant earlier this year following the expulsion of war veterans’ leader Christopher Mutsvangwa from the ruling party — which is being ravaged by its deadly factional and succession wars.

“We are happy Mliswa won and Zanu PF should know that we are plotting another Norton for 2018 after realising that Zanu PF in its current state cannot be the vehicle with which the people’s aspirations can be realised, hence we will back a party that will field a candidate that we feel is incorruptible.

“We are going to support anyone who is going to represent the people’s aspirations with the Zimbabwe National Liberation War Veterans’ Association (ZNLWVA) acting as a fair referee in the election.

“Should we come to the conclusion that there is none among the candidates that the parties will have fielded, we are in the process of amending our constitution ahead of our congress, and there the association will decide if it seconds its own candidate without it necessarily turning into a political party,” Matemadanda said.

War veterans, since falling out with Mugabe, have been working with pro-democracy and opposition groups to help end their former patron’s rule, which they now openly say has been disastrous.

The former freedom fighters had been Mugabe and Zanu PF’s strongest pillars of support over the past five decades, playing particularly significant roles to keep the nonagenarian in power in the hotly-disputed 2000 and 2008 elections which were both marred by serious violence and the murder of hundreds of MDC supporters.

But they served Mugabe with divorce papers in July to end a long relationship which dated back to the days of the 1970s liberation struggle. This was after the war veterans’ executive issued a damning communiqué in which they said churlishly that the nonagenarian was now “a hard sell” for the 2018 national elections.

Subsequently, authorities launched a brutal crackdown against the war veterans, resulting in the arrest of a number of their leaders, including Mutsvangwa, while also moving to as expel them from Zanu PF.

On Saturday they gained a measure of revenge when Mliswa won the Norton constituency which they viewed as theirs because of Mutsvangwa’s hotly-disputed expulsion from the ruling party.

Source-Daily News