(Last Updated on February 1, 2016 by Editor)
ZIMBABWE – People’s Democratic Party leader, Tendai Biti, says President Robert Mugabe and his Zanu PF party are “deliberately ignoring” addressing the country’s deteriorating economic situation, using factionalism to divert people’s attention.
Just this week, higher education minister Jonathan Moyo and presidential spokesman George Charamba publicly rowed over the succession of Mugabe who turns 92 next month.
Since Zanu PF’s 2014 congress which saw the party booting out several of its senior members, factional fights have been the order of the day in the ruling party.
Presently, Vice President Emerson Mnangagwa’s faction is said to be in nasty fight with the G-40 fronted by Moyo, businessman Philip Chiyangwa, empowerment minister Patrick Zhuwao and local government minister Savior Kasukuwere.
The G40 are publicly campaigning for First Lady Grace Mugabe to succeed her aged husband.
“There is total absence of leadership, Zimbabwe is burning, sinking and deteriorating in the malaise of multitudes of crises,” Biti told reporters during a press conference at his party’s head offices in Harare Thursday.
“What we are seeing is an implosion of failure and factionalism, an implosion of toxic politics, an implosion of hatred, no thought leadership and no love for the people and no attempt to address the country’s problems,” said Biti.
The former finance minister said Zanu PF was supposed to be concentrating on the economy and trying to find solutions to the deteriorating situation.
“The biggest challenge facing our people at the moment is that of poverty, under development and the challenge of day-to-day economic reproduction,” he said.
The country’s unemployment rate continues to rise with an estimated 91% of the population said to be jobless. Unconfirmed statistics say 76% of the population now lives on less than $1 a day.
“We are aware that there has been a total collapse of the output; minister Chinamasa reported that the growth rate in 2016 will be 2.7% but we have no doubt that it will be not less than -3.5%, a deterioration from our estimation of about -1.8% this year,” said Biti.