Exiled former Zanu PF national commissar, Saviour Kasukuwere, is begging President Emmerson Mnangagwa to be allowed back into the country, a Zanu PF official has claimed.
Also, according to the official, expelled Zanu PF Youth League leader, Kudzayi Chipanga, is seeking re-admission as an ordinary card carrying party member.
Speaking on Sunday during the ruling party’s inter district meeting, Zanu PF chairperson for Manicaland province, Mike Madiro, said President Mnangagwa told him that Kasukuwere was begging to return home.
“I was recently talking to President Mnangagwa who told me that Kasukuwere is begging for a safe passage back into the country,” said Madiro.
Kasukuwere, together with Jonathan Moyo (former higher education minister), fled into exile after the military took over the operations of government under an Operation code-named Restore Legacy claiming that they were targeting “criminals surrounding” President Robert Mugabe.
Moyo has said he “left the country legally” after he “escaped the army net” fleeing “a death warrant”. That was after their houses were subjected to some minutes of gunfire on the morning of the coup. Although their whereabouts are unknown, they are widely thought to be in Kenya-the native country of Moyo’s wife.
According to Madiro, he was approached by Chipanga who asked whether he could be admitted back into the party as an ordinary card carrying member.
“Chipanga told me that it is cold outside the party and he wants the party to reconsider him to come back as a card carrying member,” said Madiro.
“Thus when you see some youths in Makoni misbehaving and jumping on top of tables I think of him. Chipanga told me to warn them to behave because where he is its cold; very cold,” added Madiro.
Kasukuwere and Chipanga were fired from Zanu PF together with Moyo, Patrick Zhuwao and Grace Mugabe following Mugabe’s ouster last November.
Chipanga, who was an active member of the Zanu PF faction called G40 alongside Kasukuwere and Moyo, was expelled from the party after he challenged then defence forces boss, Gen Constantino Chiwenga, that party youths were going to defend then president Mugabe with the last drop of their blood.
That was after Chiwenga had threatened a coup following the expulsion of Mnangagwa from the VP post.
The revelation that Kasukuwere is begging the president to return will come as no surprise to some. While his friends, Moyo and Zhuwao, have refused to accept Mnangagwa’s rule and chosen to regularly dismiss the Harare administration as “illegitimate” Kaskuwere has remained curiously quiet.