Commenting on Monday’s controversial appointment of Zimbabwe’s Ambassador to the United Nations, Frederick Shava as the new Foreign Minister of Foreign Affairs, Zapu expressed strong reservations over the selection.
The party also accused Shava of being complicity in the early 1980s Gukurahundi atrocities which killed an estimated 20 000 people in the Midlands and Matabeleland provinces.
“Shava and Nokuthula Matsikenyere’s appointments are a portrayal of the ethnic politics that Mnangagwa is playing. The two all hail from Mberengwa in the Midlands where several Cabinet ministers also come from,” Zapu spokesperson Iphithule Maphosa told NewZimbabwe.com.
Matsikenyere was appointed Manicaland provincial minister, replacing the late Ellen Gwaradzimba who died last month.
“Shava is also being rewarded for his staunch support of Mnangagwa’s Gukurahundi.”
The opposition party further questioned the latest appointment of Shava as a Cabinet minister when he was implicated in the infamous Willowgate car scandal which led to his resignation from government in the 1980s.
Shava, a former minister for labor and political affairs portfolio during the era of the now late President Robert Mugabe, was once convicted and sentenced to nine months in prison before he was acquitted by Mugabe after spending only one night in jail.
“However, we are not surprised that a thief of government cars has joined the Cabinet of ‘genocidists’. Shava’s appointment is also a telling on the absence of substance and capacity within the Lacoste faction of Zanu-PF. Plucking out a political dinosaur from the dustbins shows none was found capable both locally and within the rank and file of the 2017 ‘coupists’,” said Maphosa.
A number of Zimbabweans including exiled former minister Jonathan Moyo have criticised Shava’s appointment. He replaces Sibusiso Moyo who recently died from Covid-19 related complications.
