Manicaland Provincial Affairs minister Mandiitawepi Chimene yesterday sensationally claimed credit for exposing fired Vice-President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s Tsholotsho Declaration, a 2004 suspected “palace coup”, which later claimed the scalps of several Zanu PF provincial chairpersons who attended the meeting.

Addressing an extraordinary provincial co-ordination committee meeting in Mutare, Chimene said she was one of the people who had been selected to participate in the envisaged coup.

“I blew up the Tsholotsho coup. I want to tell you for the first time, on the day in question, they kept on calling me asking where I was and I kept telling them I was coming. When I indicated that I was on the road, they said they were flying to Tsholotsho, and I did not go,” Chimene claimed.

She also ripped into former Zanu PF Manicaland chairman Mike Madiro and Water Development and Climate minister Oppah Muchinguri for being Mnangagwa’s allies.

Madiro, who attended the PCC, left the meeting earlier after some rowdy Zanu PF youths ordered him out of the meeting.

She accused Muchinguri of labelling her a “drunkard” in a leaked tape that later went viral on social media platforms a few years back.

“There was this disc where I was labelled a drunkard. That person is a senior member, I want to urge all the youth members not to join such people. We should also know that there is only one President Robert Mugabe and our First Lady Grace Mugabe,” she said.
Both Muchinguri and Chimene have been fighting to control the province.

Chimene also accused Cyber Security minister Patrick Chinamasa of recently describing her as uneducated.

“I met Chinamasa and he said I always say anything because I am not educated. True, I am not educated, but I know what I am doing,” the provincial minister said.