PRESIDENT Robert Mugabe on Thursday said he was embarrassed by the vote-buying and interference that he witnessed at his Zanu PF’s party’s youth league conference held in Harare last week.
He said he was embarrassed with the way senior officials in his faction-torn party interfered with the operations of the youth league to the extent of coercing them to choose a leader they never liked.
“We failed to organise the youth league conference, we interfered in a shameful way, old people interfering in the politics of the youths, kupindira nenzira inonyadzisa (interfering in a shameful way),” he said.
A seething Mugabe said the underhand manoeuvres by influential politicians were meant to strategically position loyalists ahead of the party's main elective congress in December.
“There were many blunders in preparing for the youth league conference, some of them even criminal blunders, in interfering with the rights of members of the youth league to right their affairs, to make their own choice of who they preferred where the election of their own candidates for certain positions was necessary.”
The youth conference almost descended into a farce as rival factions squabbled over the choice of leaders leading to the process being put to a secret ballot. But there were allegations that even 50-year-olds were allowed to cast their votes.
During the elections, Mutasa West MP, Kudzai Chipanga, trounced Tongai Kasukuwere, brother to Water Resources Minister Saviour Kasukuwere, who is loyal to Justice Minister Emmerson Mnangagwa.
Chipanga, who is said to be loyal to a faction led by Vice-President Joice Mujuru, defeated Kasukuwere by a comprehensive 1 381 to 986 votes.
The poorly organised conference also saw the First Family donating 30 beasts from its kraal and 1,000 tonnes of maize to feed starving delegates.
On Thursday, Mugabe went even more blunt, berating his power-hungry lieutenants for splashing cash to bribe voters while failing to source for donations to run the conference.
“The party had no money to provide transport to the people but there was money to buy votes,” he said to cheers from the women delegates.
He continued: “Some are already campaigning vigorously and using lots of money and so they would want to see the youth league, the women's league producing persons whom they think support them and will at congress then combine in electing them."
“I have heard that there are people who are doing certain things here; please! We don’t want to have interference in the same way it was done with youths. We don’t want you to come up with decisions that you don’t like.”
“As we are meeting here, we are preparing for the elective congress, at that congress, all the leaders of the party at central committee level, politburo level, must resign, all of us must resign so that new ones can be chosen,” he said.
“Right now, there are people who are misbehaving, plotting outcomes of these conferences, but you here be careful. If you want to be slaves of these people, it’s up to you,” he said.
“We are saying people should be allowed to choose a leader they want. Our hopes are that right now, we have party programmes that need support, we expect people to support these programmes and then the people will reward us,” he said.
Outgoing Women’s League boss, Oppah Muchinguri, this week claimed that power-hungry party officials had kidnapped their rivals to stop them from being elected into the women’s executive, claims that were dismissed by national party chairman, Simon Khaya-Moyo, as false.
Mugabe’s wife, Grace, is expected to be elected the Zanu PF Women’s League boss marking the 49-year-old’s formal entry into politics.