Former ZANU PF Central Committee member and independent candidate for Mwenezi West, Tafadzwa Masvayamwando Shumba, has labelled the ruling party as an “evil” institution, saying many people are suffering because of it.
He made these comments while speaking to mourners at his mother Clara Shumba’s funeral in Rutenga last week, reported The Mirror.
Clara Shumba, the late Mwenezi West legislator Isaac Shumba’s wife, was declared a provincial war hero.
Tafadzwa, a former member of the ZANU PF National Consultative Assembly, became an independent candidate due to alleged widespread rigging attributed to Forever Associates of Zimbabwe (FAZ) and CIO operatives during the party’s tumultuous primary elections ahead of the 2023 harmonised elections.
Priscilla Zindari-Moyo, the wife of CIO director Isaac Moyo, was declared the winner of that primary election.
During the lead-up to the August 2023 elections, Tafadzwa’s Toyota GD6 was reportedly hijacked at gunpoint and subsequently set on fire near Chirindi Township after he challenged Moyo.
He told mourners that important family business documents were lost in the fire and that his mother’s health declined after police concluded their investigation without identifying any suspects. Said Shumba:
ZANU PF is evil. Everyone knows the people who burnt the car and they are walking freely. I want to tell those from the President’s office to listen carefully and report correctly.
We are now orphans because of ZANU PF. My father, my mother and I worked for that party and this is what we are getting in return. I rue the day my father decided to join politics.
My mother walked a very long distance running away from soldiers after someone sold out that she was feeding freedom fighters.
They declared her a provincial liberation hero but they are not here because they know what they did. Many people are suffering because of ZANU PF.
However, ZANU PF Masvingo provincial chairman Rabson Mavhenyengwa said that Shumba was lying, pointing out that senior ZANU PF members, including Otilia Maluleke, the Politburo deputy secretary for economic development and empowerment, as well as Matabeleland South senator Tambudzani Mohadi, attended the funeral but were not allowed to speak.
Mavhenyengwa also said that Tafadzwa is an opposition to ZANU PF so he can say whatever he wants to tarnish their party.
He further claimed that some individuals chose not to attend the funeral after being threatened by Tafadzwa.
ZANU PF reportedly targeted its former members who ran as independents in Masvingo, which led to the controversial death of Gutu West independent candidate Christopher Mutonhori Rwodzi, who died in what was described as a freak car accident along the Chivhu-Mpandawana highway a few weeks before the national elections.
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