Ruling party veteran expelled over Mugabe comments in book

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(9 Mar 2007) SHOTLIST • 1. Wide of book in window of bookshop • 2. Close up of cover of book • 3. Close up of Tekere's face on book • 4. Book on bookshelf • 5. Book seller looking at book • 6. SOUNDBITE: (English) Peter (no surname given), Book seller: • Tekere's book is going like hot buns, or it's selling like hot buns (selling fast). • 7. Bookseller arranging books on shelf • 8. SOUNDBITE: (English) Peter (no surname given), Book seller: • Most of the people they are hunting for it or looking for it. I can't get more, someone can come and say 'I need Tekere's book' and we say it is finished because of the demand. • 9. SOUNDBITE (English) Semeri Dzinotyewi, Political analyst: • It is actually more of the ruling party which might lose credibility because people are beginning to see that even personal issues, personal differences, with the president can lead to you being expelled from the party. So really it is more of the party losing credibility than Mr Tekere losing anything. He is just an ordinary member of the party anyway. • 10. Tekere standing for meeting • 11. Close up of photographer taking picture of Tekere • 12. SOUNDBITE: (English) Edgar Tekere, Co-founder of ZANU-PF ruling party: • Today you are talking about the social contract, the social contract; government, labour and employers - one of the three eggs is thoroughly rotten. How can you go into a contract with one of the eggs so thoroughly rotten, this egg of the government is the most rotten thing, so thoroughly corrupt. • 13. Wide of Tekere addressing crowd • 14. Close up of book in Tekere's hand • 15. Tekere signing book • STORYLINE: • The ruling party in Zimbabwe ZANU-PF, expelled one of its co-founders, veteran politician Edgar Tekere, for insulting President Robert Mugabe in a recently published autobiography, the state Sunday Mail reported. • A meeting of party leaders in Tekere's home district of Manicaland, eastern Zimbabwe, unreservedly condemned Tekere's book, A Lifetime of Struggle which was launched in Harare in January, and selling briskly, according to the newspaper, a government mouthpiece. • It quoted the provincial Zimbabwe African Nation Union Patriotic (ZANU-PF) chairman as saying the autobiography clearly and explicitly denigrates and vilifies Mugabe. • He said provincial leaders would not consider an appeal by Tekere. • The book has become a local best seller as Mugabe's popularity plummets amid the nation's worst political and economic crisis since independence. • Most of the people they are hunting for it or looking for it one bookseller in the capital Harare said on Thursday. • Tekere, 69, a former ruling party secretary general and long seen as a political maverick, left the party a decade ago to form a short-lived opposition group he called the Zimbabwe Unity Movement. • He said he founded that party to oppose corruption in Mugabe's government. • Last year he was granted readmission on condition he took no ruling party office for five years. • One political analyst said Tekere's expulsion was more likely to damage ZANU-PF than Tekere. • It is actually more of the ruling party which might lose credibility because people are beginning to see that even personal issues, personal differences, with the president can lead to you being expelled from the party, Semeri Dzinotyewi said. • At a meeting on Thursday to discuss his book Tekere attacked the government. • The government is the most rotten thing, so thoroughly corrupt, he said. • He said Mugabe did not favour the split, contrary to official ruling party history that Mugabe led the schism. • Mugabe himself dismissed the autobiography as the work of an unbalanced mind. • • Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork • Twitter: / ap_archive • Facebook: / aparchives • Instagram: / apnews • • • You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/you...

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