Exiled former Mugabe minister to return home, announces Mnangagwa presidential challenge

A seasoned minister and political commissar under the late former Zimbabwe strongman Robert Mugabe, Saviour Kasukuwere, has announced his candidature for the presidency in general elections slated for 23 August.

“I accept the call to run for president of the Republic of Zimbabwe,” 53-year-old Kasukuwere, who has been exiled in South Africa since the November 2017 putsch, announced in a statement. He briefly returned home a year after the coup but fled to South Africa again. 

Kasukuwere threwn his hat into the ring two days before the nomination court convenes.For one to be a presidential candidate in Zimbabwe, an individual has to be above 40 years of age and be a resident of Zimbabwe; the registration fees for this year’s polls stand at about R400 000.

Kasukuwere said he would be standing as an independent candidate “painful as it is” because Zanu PF failed to hold an elective congress in December 2017, after the removal of Mugabe, and in September last year, when President Emmerson Mnangagwa stood unchallenged for the leadership of the party.Kasukuwere fled Zimbabwe with Professor Jonathan Moyo, when tanks rolled into Harare, after surviving a gunfire attack at his bulletproof house.

Before they fled the country, they were hidden at Mugabe’s Blue Roof Mansion.

Kasukuwere and Moyo were the leading lights in a faction that was referred to as Generation 40 (G40), which backed Mugabe and drew its support base from young Turks in the party.

They were bent on blocking Mnangagwa’s rise to power.

Mnangagwa had military support and some relatively old Zanu PF members known as the “Lacoste faction”.

To this day, Kasukuwere said Zanu PF practised politics of exclusion and was particularly vindictive towards those who were loyal to Mugabe.

“We continue to experience exclusionary politics and the persecution of members who were loyal to president cde Robert Gabriel Mugabe. It is unacceptable that the so-called new dispensation has exiled myself and many other comrades over one key disagreement about how the internal succession process ought to have been handled,” he said.

Kasukuwere is of the view that Mnangagwa cannot “win any leadership position in a fair and open political process”.

In November last year, Kasukuwere availed himself to Zanu PF supporters as “one of the comrades” if they needed him to lead the country.His voters could be drawn from disgruntled Zanu PF supporters at the general elections.

In his statement, he kept referring to Zanu PF as “the party”.

He added that at the core of their disgruntlement was not a political ideology, and so a path could be formed to change the course of the country’s direction.

“It is time to build our nation together. There is more that unites us than divides us. Our political differences are not ideological. Hence, with unity of purpose and visionary leadership, we will overcome our current and future challenges,” he said.

Some political commentators, such as Ibbo Mandaza of the Southern Africa Political Economy Series (SAPES) Trust, say Kasukuwere could make a dent in Mnangagwa’s votes-News24