Delivering a speech at the National Heroes Acre during the double burial of Maud Muzenda and George Rutanhire today, President Robert Mugabe said that people from Masvingo were labelling him a witch/wizard. He asked if people from Midlands province which is considered as Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s stronghold, was influencing Masvingo.
Said Mugabe:
Takange tisina vanegeda-geda, kwete zvatava kuona izvi. Vanoti vanoona varoyi, hanzi naPresident vava muroyi, nekwatabva kwose uku, vangani vandauraya. Kuti zvinobva kuMidlands here zvichienda kuMasvingo? Hatina huroyi muparty. Down with such witch-craft talk. (There was unity. Not what we are seeing today. This is not the Masvingo we knew. We hear they even identify witches and wizards. We now hear that even the President is one. Ah, why now when we came all the way? We don’t have wizards in Zanu PF, we only have people who lose party ideology.)
This can be seen as an apparent response to claims by Lacoste faction that Mnangagwa was ‘poisoned’ by ice cream from Gushungo Dairies.