PLUMTREE – Zanu PF top officials Mangaliso Ndlovu and Obert Mpofu torched a storm weekend after labelling party opponents “confused cockroaches”, “sell-outs and clowns”.

Ndlovu, the country’s tourism minister who is also Zanu PF legislator for Bulilima East and party provincial chair for Matabeleland South, was speaking at a rally at Nyele Primary School, Plumtree during President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s star rally.

Speaking in Ndebele, Ndlovu taunted the opposition Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC) for allegedly presiding over a chaotic candidate nomination process last month.

“Your Excellency, Matabeleland South province is well organised. We (Zanu PF) don’t have a single independent candidate.

“There are others who are confused. We wonder if they are a convention for confused cockroaches,” Ndlovu said in apparent bastardisation of the opposition acronym, CCC.

“What happened on nomination day showed us that these are people you would not trust to be in charge of a village, let alone an entire country.

“For 13 years, Your Excellency, from 2000 to 2013, we endured being under the opposition in Matabeleland South.

“Mat South was fully re-liberated in 2013.

“Since then, the level of development that we have seen under Zanu PF is massive.”

Also speaking at the same event, Mpofu, who is Zanu PF secretary for administration, said the country was best without opposition parties he described as sell-outs.

Also speaking in Ndebele, Mpofu said, “There is no need to have an opposition in Zimbabwe”.

“People fought for this country; a lot of blood was spilt. The people who make up the opposition today were sell-outs (during the war of liberation).

“Some are still selling out.”

Mpofu also took aim at Kasukuwere, Zanu PF’s former party political commissar, whose presidential election bid he vowed to resist.

The former mines minister described Kasukuwere as a criminal and a clown who should not be allowed to contest in the August poll.

“Someone who has a criminal record leaves Zimbabwe and goes to form a party in South Africa and return to Zimbabwe to try and rule this country. We will not allow that.

“Ubaba uMnangagwa ulozwelo; ukuthi wonke umuntu obengathi ulamadlabuzane obulema abuye azovuliparty la, ephambanisa abantu,” Mpofu said.

Loosely translated, Mpofu said Mnangagwa was so tolerant that he would allow clowns and people who wield negative energy to reduce Zimbabwe’s political arena into a playground and an instrument for causing public confusion.

Responding to Ndlovu’s comments, CCC spokesperson Fadzayi Mahere said the utterances were in bad taste for a province that saw the worst of government sponsored genocide in the early years of independence.

“Zanu PF calling CCC members cockroaches in a province that was once plagued by genocide is a dangerous new, unconstitutional low,” she said.