Rivalry With Mugabe
Tekere was dismissed from the government on 11 January 1981, a decision he was reported to be happy with; he retained the Secretary-Generalship of ZANU. In April 1981 he was detained by Kenyan security forces to prevent him from speaking to students after giving a newspaper interview in which he said he was proud of the killing of Gerald Adams. In July, Tekere referred to some ZANU representatives as having "inherited the colonial mentality," which was straining relations between them and the party's supporters. Mugabe hit back by saying "Those who are complaining that the revolution is not continuing... are the most immoral and laziest in the party." Tekere was increasingly seen as a leader of a rival faction to Mugabe, and was dismissed as Secretary-General on 9 August with Mugabe taking the post himself.
After criticising corruption in the party, in August 1984 Tekere was elected to the Central Committee of ZANU-PF and carried shoulder-high from the Congress; he was also being supported by the Whites in Zimbabwe after opposing the farm squats by ZANU-PF) supporters which he described as "donga watonga" (chaotic government). He was provincial chairman of ZANU-PF in Mutare.
Read more about this topic: Edgar Tekere
Famous quotes containing the word rivalry:
“Sisters define their rivalry in terms of competition for the gold cup of parental love. It is never perceived as a cup which runneth over, rather a finite vessel from which the more one sister drinks, the less is left for the others.”
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