Zanu PF embarrasses VP Nkomo
in [Physics]
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From: as on 23 May 2010 12:51 Zanu PF embarrasses VP Nkomo http://www.thestandard.co.zw/ Saturday, 22 May 2010 20:39 VICE-President John Nkomo suffered a major embarrassment yesterday when Zanu PF supporters publicly disobeyed him, leading to the abortion of a national healing meeting that was supposed to be held in Harare. In what some felt exposed the level of lawlessness among Zanu PF followers, the party's supporters blocked the meeting from proceeding on the basis that they could not be made to have equal representation with the two Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) formations. Each of the three governing parties was supposed to have 60 representatives at the meeting. There was chaos from the onset when more than 100 Zanu PF supporters made their way into the Harare International Conference Centre. Repeated attempts to prune their number down to the stipulated 60 hit a brickwall. Zanu PF supporters claimed the two MDCs were just different factions of the same party, and should not be treated as two different parties. The disruptive group protested that it was a deliberate attempt to outnumber them in case there was some voting to be done. Nkomo literally faced the Zanu PF music when his party's members broke into song and dance. They accused him of trying to sell out to the MDCs. They sung such songs as "Zanu ndeyeropa (Zanu PF came through the shedding of blood)", and another one which included the lyrics "Isu hatibve muno kusvika Gushungo vauya (We will not leave this place unless Gushungo - President Robert Mugabe comes"). Repeated attempts by senior officials, including Presidential Affairs Minister Didymus Mutasa to bring the Zanu PF supporters to order fell on deaf ears. The other two Ministers of National Healing, Gibson Sibanda and Sekai Holland just watched as the Zanu PF supporters got out of hand. Addressing the noisy crowd, Nkomo could not hide his disappointment. "If I cannot get any respect and any co-operation from you, as the Vice-President of Zanu PF and the Vice-President of the country, then I can only say I am disappointed," Nkomo said. "If you are going to bring anything from outside, then there is no discipline. "We will have therefore to re-arrange our approach to the whole thing. We are on a mission given to us by the three principals of our parties. We will do our job." The meeting was supposed to end at 1230hrs, but three quarters of the time that had been scheduled for deliberations was wasted trying to bring the Zanu PF supporters to order. "We hold party chairpersons in the province responsible for failure to respond to our invitation in the manner we gave them," said Nkomo. "Regrettably we cannot proceed because we cannot accede to any other arrangement except the arrangements we had made ourselves (as the Organ). "We have aborted our meeting for today, we will now sit down and plan our next step." Immediately after Nkomo had finished speaking and as the leaders of the Organ were preparing to leave the venue, some Zanu PF supporters openly threatened their MDC counterparts with violence. This forced Nkomo to delay his departure by another two minutes, warning his party's supporters that they would face the wrath of the law if they engaged in violence. "There are some here who are threatening others. In the GPA, those others are entitled to be protected by the law," he said. As they left the venue of the meeting, Zanu PF supporters vowed never to allow the MDC formations to have equal representations with them. "Havana kumbotibatsira kurwa hondo vanhu ava. Tichavarova zvakaipa Bhora ngaripere (These people never helped us during the war. We will deal with them after the World Cup)," vowed one elderly Zanu PF supporter, who also looked unwell. BY VUSUMUZI SIFILE
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