War vet leader dismisses expulsion from Zanu PF

By Lance Guma
27 September 2005

War veterans chairman Jabulani Sibanda has accused Zanu PF National Chairman, John Nkomo of running the party like a social club. He was responding to a letter written by Nkomo expelling him from the party for among other things insubordination and continually criticizing the leadership.

He says Nkomo and a few reactionary forces in the party are clearly gunning for power when Robert Mugabe steps down in 2008 and were trying to eliminate their political rivals. Sibanda boasted he was capable of beating Nkomo in any election anywhere and says the party cannot be run by evil men like him who put personal interests over those of the people.

Using operation ‘Murambatsvina’ as an example, he says some of the party leaders have divorced themselves from the people and are implementing bad decisions. There are officials, in his view, who are blocking Mugabe from relating with the people and actually believes the Zanu PF leader is as much a victim as he is.

Sibanda was already serving a four year suspension along with other former provincial party chairmen following the much talked about Tsholostho meeting which allegedly sought to choose a successor to Robert Mugabe. He becomes the only one from the group to be expelled.

The war veteran’s leader says he will ignore the letter, as Nkomo could not be a complainant, prosecutor and judge at the same time. Sibanda’s case was already pending an appeal and hence Nkomo had been eliminated from the adjudication process.

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