27/08/2026
ZANU PF MASVINGO DEFERS MZEMBI READMISSION BID, WANTS ANSWERS ON SOCIAL MEDIA POSTS
MASVINGO, Zimbabwe — ZANU PF's Masvingo province has deferred former Cabinet minister Walter Mzembi's application to rejoin the party, resolving instead to summon him to answer for past criticism of the party on social media.
The decision was taken Wednesday at an emergency meeting of the Provincial Executive Council at Masvingo Polytechnic, where Mzembi's letter seeking readmission as an ordinary member was tabled.
Provincial political commissar Brian Munyoro proposed that Mzembi appear before the Provincial Coordinating Committee to respond to allegations of attacking the party.
The PEC resolved to print copies of his Facebook and X posts for him to explain before any decision is made.
Among the posts at issue is a Feb. 13 post in which Mzembi called ZANU PF Secretary for War Veterans Douglas Mahiya's push for a state of emergency and an extension to 2030 "rank madness" and said some people "should never be elevated or deployed beyond their levels of competence."
On Dec. 27, 2024, he wrote: "Bottom line is we should never run Zimbabwe to a point where our people miss Ian Smith! ... do better than Ian Smith otherwise you have no business being in office."
On Jan. 29, he wrote that the "President is now being set up to fail by his own team, a hostage President to charlatans... Vetting into State House now zero," tagging President Emmerson Mnangagwa.
On Aug. 3, 2024, he warned Mnangagwa he was being "set up to fail by your own," compared the clampdown and rhetoric to former President Robert Mugabe's late period, and told him to "wake up and smell the coffee Mr President."
In other posts, Mzembi has repeatedly framed November 2017 as an unfinished, non-dialogued "festering wound," criticized "military assisted" politics and argued real change must start inside ZANU PF.
Mzembi, 61, was expelled on Nov. 19, 2017, during a special emergency Central Committee meeting that removed allies of Mugabe.
A former tourism and later foreign affairs minister, he was linked to the Generation 40 faction that lost the succession fight to the Lacoste grouping aligned with Mnangagwa.
After his expulsion, Mzembi lived in South Africa and Zambia. He returned to Zimbabwe in June 2025, was arrested on outstanding warrants, and was acquitted in May of charges relating to the donation of four television sets valued at about $200,000 without Treasury approval.
He had spent 11 months in remand prison. In his application letter, Mzembi said: "I sincerely wish to renew my membership and contribute positively to its programs and activities."
He is reported to have recently separated with his wife a Cuban national, Barbara Hernandez Mzembi.
Some PEC members said if readmitted, he should return only as a card-carrying member at cell level and hold no leadership post.
Others opposed readmission outright.
Political analyst Thandeko Zinti Mkandla, a former Gwanda mayor and former Gwanda East legislator under the MDC, said the move was not surprising.
"Once you're in ZANU PF, you can't get out for various reasons, and at the top is the personal benefit they get or perceive to get from the party," Mkandla said. "He has always been ZANU PF anyway. It has just been a small inconvenience."
Mkandla said the lack of a strong opposition alternative was pushing figures back toward the ruling party.
"There may be no other strong or appealing organization currently in Zimbabwe that would entice people to shift," he said.
"In the absence of any counter organization, I can see some of those without much of a conscience flocking to join ZANU PF, hoping that there's still something to loot or to gain."
The case now sits with Masvingo structures. Readmission, if granted, would still require higher party approval.
