Harare – Youths from Zimbabwe's ruling Zanu-PF are reportedly
divided over plans to amend the party's constitution to accommodate a female
vice president.
Reports last week indicated that there was a proposed push
within Zanu-PF to include a woman in the presidium, a move seen by many as a way
by the party's G40 faction to ensure that its leader Grace Mugabe became vice
president.
Zanu-PF was
divided into two distinct factions that sought to outwit each other in the
battle to succeed President Robert Mugabe. Mugabe has failed to groom a successor in
his 37 years in power in the southern African country.
One of the camps calling itself
"Team Lacoste" was linked to Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa, while
another faction made up of Young Turks trading by the name Generation
40 was reportedly linked to Grace. G40 was said to be seeking to torpedo
Mnangagwa's presidential ambitions.
However, both Mnangagwa and the
First Lady have publicly denied harbouring presidential ambitions.
Tempers
According to NewsDay, Grace's allies were said to be pushing for
her elevation at the party's extraordinary
congress set for December.
The extraordinary congress was brought forward by two years.
The report said that the
G40 faction was allegedly plotting to use the event to either push out Mnangagwa and
replace him with Grace or create the post of a third vice-president to sneak
the First Lady in.
However, tempers
reportedly flared when Zanu-PF youth league national executive members debated
the matter at the ongoing International Festival of Students and Youth in
Sochi, Russia, the report said.
The report
quoted sources as saying that tempers boiled over after some party executives
accused league secretary Kudzanayi Chipanga of resisting efforts to amend the
party constitution to allow for Grace's elevation.
Revolution
Last week, Zimbabwe's former freedom fighters vowed to stop the alleged plan to get Mugabe's
wife elected as a vice president.
The
chairperson of Zimbabwe National Liberation War Veterans Association in
Bulawayo, Caphas Ncube, said that they were "watching them [G40]
closely" and would "defend the revolution we fought for".
Ncube said, however, that the war veterans were
not against the proposed extraordinary conference, but were against the
continuous "changing of the party's constitution to suit personal and
individual interests".
"We cannot have a situation
where the party's constitution is being changed at the behest of other people," Ncube was quoted as saying.
