FORMER Information Minister Jonathan Moyo made a triumphant return to Zanu PF’s central committee yesterday as the announcement of his election was made amid the loudest and prolonged  applause.

But the Fifth Zanu PF National Congress failed to agree on crucial amendments to the party’s constitution, after ethnic divisions that have been simmering over the years intensified.

In order to contain the explosive situation, the Congress elected people by acclamation. The outcome was retention of the old line up. President Mugabe, as a result, did not appoint members of his party’s politburo.

The party leadership spent most of the time in what was supposed to be two days of serious deliberations scheming ways of pre-empting a potentially divisive fall-out from disgruntled members who felt there was “a serious disregard of the voices of people at the grassroots”.

After getting wind of plans by some members to move motions from the floor, the party leadership decided to defer amendments to the constitution to the next central committee.

It is hoped Mugabe will have a better chance of reining in rebellious supporters within the central committee.

Sources said the draft list of amendments had six pages containing more than 100 items.

The party’s legal affairs secretary Emmerson Mnangagwa confirmed the deferment of the amendments, saying the process would now be handled by the central committee.

“We have deferred the amendments because they are too many,” Mnangagwa said.

“We cannot finish them at this congress. But this does not mean we have dropped them, we can always discuss the amendments at the central committee meetings according to the existing constitution.”

Zanu PF sources said the postponement was one of the many desperate attempts by the party’s leadership to contain the chaos that had been building up in the run up to the congress.

“In terms of what was supposed to be done, it’s just as good as this was a one-day congress. Most of the issues which we expected to be tackled were either deferred or dropped from the agenda,” said the source.

“All this is because of the leadership’s fear of a revolt from people who wanted to challenge what is now common practice by the leadership to subvert internal democracy.

“People elect their candidates, but you have the politburo just sitting and reversing those processes, and imposing losers on the people.”

“This fear of internal democracy flies in the face of the very ideals the party fought the liberation struggle for – which is democracy.”

Among other things, the disgruntled members wanted to nominate Oppah Muchinguri for the Vice-Presidency from the floor.

In the only province where there was an open challenge for the other vice-presidential post, Muchinguri clobbered the incumbent Joice Mujuru by 84 votes to 25.

“I can assure you, if given a chance, people would have reversed a number of politburo decisions, and also clarify tendency that in the presidium there is never an election. We are always presented with names for endorsement,” added the source.

“What the provinces claim is not a true reflection of what the districts want. Most of those nominees are not wanted by people at the grassroots.”

In the initial list of central committee nominees, Manicaland had left out former provincial chairperson Mike Madiro and Freddy Kanzama, who had been overwhelmingly elected by their district.

But the names had to be included after protests from ordinary supporters from Manicaland.

Sources said there were near violent scenes especially during debate of a report on the state of the party.

South African Minister of Human Settlements, Tokyo Sexwale who led a delegation of the African Nation Congress (ANC) also made reference to the “heckling” that characterised proceedings at the congress.

He pleaded with Zanu PF to fulfill the Global Political Agreement (GPA), saying “what goes wrong in Zimbabwe will and must also affect South Africa because we are joined by a little river called Limpopo”.

The congress saw National Healing Minister John Nkomo and Zimbabwe’s Ambassador to South Africa being elevated to Vice-President and Zanu PF chairman respectively.

By The Standard