The Zanu PF Women’s League has recommended that President Robert Mugabe should be the party’s sole candidate in the 2018 general elections.
Party activist and political analyst, Morris Ngwenya, who attended the elections, told the VOA Zimbabwe Service’s Studio 7 they also proposed that Mr. Mugabe’s wife, Grace, be nominated to the powerful post of secretary of the Women’s League.
Ngwenya said the endorsement of President Mugabe shows that the party has confidence in the president, who will be 94 years old in 2018.
“This was a unanimous decision that was made by the Women’s League. It shows that all organs of the party and the nation have confidence in the president,” he said.
He noted that the Women’s League also rallied behind the nomination of Mr. Mugabe’s wife to post of secretary of the organ.
The party’s Central Committee, and highest decision-making body outside congress, the Politburo, will make recommendations to the president before he makes his final decision on moves to elevate his wife in the Zanu PF structures.
President Mugabe’s first wife, Sally, lead the Women’s League for a couple of years after independence in 1980 before she died.
Some people linked to the party’s two factions allegedly led by Vice President Joice Mujuru and Justice Minister Emerson Mnangagwa say the battle for the control of the party is not yet over ahead of the Zanu PF National People’s Congress set for the end of this year.
Critics argue that the party is likely to split if one of the factions is defeated while party supporters view the squabbles as part of the democratic processes in Zanu PF.
According to independent political analyst Bekezela Maduma, what is clear is that Zanu PF is struggling to contain factionalism in the party.
Maduma believes that Mr. Mugabe is playing the role of a veteran politician as he has not aligned himself with either Mrs. Mujuru or Mnangagwa said to be habouring presidential ambitions.
The two have over the years denied that they lead the factions that have almost effectively split the former liberation party into these distinct groups.
Zanu PF activist Nick Mangwana believes that the party is unlikely to collapse due to political squabbles.
