A CHARGED Harare provincial co-ordinating committee meeting held on Sunday exposed growing opposition to a Zanu PF slogan calling for the extention of President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s incumbency.
Sources said members at the meeting were ordered to stop chanting the ED2030 slogan to avoid causing more friction in the ruling party over a plot to extend Mnangagwa’s term of office.
Mnangagwa’s second and final term ends in 2028, although party members from Midlands and Masvingo provinces want his tenure to be extended. Mnangagwa has refused to drink from a poisoned chalice.
On Sunday, there was a charged provincial co-ordinating committee meeting in Harare where questions were raised over the ED2030 slogan with Harare chairperson Godwills Masimirembwa also taken to task.
Party members quizzed national commissar Munyaradzi Machacha on why the party leadership has been allowing members to chant the 2030 slogan when Mnangagwa has said he will not extend his rule.
Machacha reportedly said Zanu PF would elect a new leader in 2027, allowing members to support their chosen candidates.
“Machacha said the party will select a new leader in 2027 ahead of the 2028 general elections,” an insider, who attended the meeting, disclosed.
“Cde Machacha, stated that President Mnangagwa’s term ends in 2028.”
Mnangagwa’s loyalists have, however, been pushing to extend his rule by two years to 2030.
Mnangagwa announced at the party’s conference held in Bulawayo in October that he will not stand for re-election.
Zanu PF spokesperson Farai Marapira said he was in China when contacted for comment yesterday on the party position on the ED2030 slogan.
Machacha also refused to comment when contacted for comment on the same matter.
He referred NewsDay to provincial chairperson Godwills Masimirembwa.
Masimirembwa told NewsDay last night that Sunday’s meeting went on well without incidents. Asked whether he was grilled at the meeting, he said “those are the wishes of detractors”.
The provincial chairperson said Machacha attended the meeting and discussions centred on cells, strengthening of the party and unity.
“There was nothing on slogans,” he said, adding that there was a stern warning on those “peddling lies and disunity on social media”.
“It was resolved that they should be disciplined and there should be order in the party structures in Harare,” he said.
Masimirembwa was reportedly heavily-attacked in the meeting, being accused of failing to unite Harare province.
“He was nearly suspended, the Harare structures accused him of dividing the party,” a source said.
During the party’s annual conference held in Bulawayo in October, Masimirembwa allegedly chucked out Kudakwashe Damson among several other party members on charges of supporting Vice-President Constantino Chiwenga.
Mnangagwa’s loyalists in Midlands and Masvingo want his term extended to 2030 from 2028 when he is set to step aside having served his constitutional two terms.
The loyalists have coined the ED2030 slogan, but the plot has ignited intense fighting within party structures with the military command said to be against Mnangagwa’s term extension.
Last week, war veteran Blessing Geza said the extension of terms was dead in the water.
He was speaking to Heart & Soul TV where he also claimed that Vice-President Constantino Chiwenga will take over from Mnangagwa in 2028.
Sources have been claiming that Mnangagwa wanted the two-year extension, but was forced to climb down after realising that the military and war veterans were against the move.
Sources said the ED2030 slogan was divisive because of lack of support from grassroots structures.
This is despite the ruling party adopting as one its resolutions plans to amend the Constitution to extend Mnangagwa’s term of office.
