Zanu PF has blocked an attempt by its Manicaland provincial leadership to co-opt President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s investment adviser, Paul Tempter Tungwarara into the party’s central committee, ruling that the move violated party procedures and warning against creeping vote buying.
The intervention came in a December 11 letter from National Political Commissar Munyaradzi Machacha to provincial chairman Tawanda Mukodza, in which he nullified Tungwarara’s elevation by the Manicaland Provincial Coordinating Committee (PCC) during its December 7 meeting.
Machacha said the PCC had disregarded guidelines issued by the party’s legal affairs department, which require that any replacement for a vacant central committee post must come from the same administrative district as the departing member.
Tungwarara had been selected to fill a vacancy left by Dorothy Mabika, who hailed from Chipinge.
The said co-option has been nullified with immediate effect,” Machacha wrote, stressing that the correct nominee “must originate from Chipinge administrative district” in line with Zanu PF’s proportional representation rules across districts.
He also issued a pointed warning against any acts of inducement, saying “issuance of money, goods or services” by aspirants would be treated as vote buying and lead to automatic disqualification.
Tungwarara, who has amassed significant wealth through opaque state contracts, was accused by rivals of distributing cash and buying food for PCC delegates who backed his attempted co-option.
Manicaland has been instructed to restart the process, this time adhering strictly to the legal affairs department circular.
Once a peripheral political figure, Tungwarara has rapidly risen within Zanu PF circles through a series of high-profile schemes run in the name of Mnangagwa including the Presidential Borehole Scheme, the Presidential Stands for Veterans of the Liberation Struggle Programme, the Presidential War Veterans Fund and the Presidential Solar Programme.
His nationwide cash giveaways and lavish sponsorship of party activities have unsettled some within Zanu PF, who privately warn that money is increasingly tilting internal power dynamics.
With some touting him as a future presidential candidate, Tungwarara appears in a hurry to scale up Zanu PF’s political ladder, and a place in the 300-member central committee is a key step.
