Zim's VP linked to Mugabe assassination plot

Johannesburg - Zimbabwe's vice president, once seen as a possible
successor to President Robert Mugabe, has been linked to an alleged
plot to assassinate the 90-year-old leader, a state-run newspaper
reported on Sunday.
An ally of Vice President Joice Mujuru who was recently ousted from
his post as ruling party spokesperson, said the allegations that he
conspired against Mugabe are false. Rugare Gumbo, the ousted
spokesperson, was identified in The Sunday Mail as a plotter against
Mugabe, who has been in power since independence in 1980.
The Sunday Mail cited a voice recording and reported comments as
evidence of the alleged plot, but it did not attribute the information to
security officials or other sources.
Political factions are manoeuvring influence ahead of the annual ruling
party congress next month. Mujuru has come under repeated verbal
attacks from the president's wife, Grace.
Grace Mugabe has assumed an increasingly political role, angering
some party insiders who believe she does not have leadership
credentials in a country struggling with high unemployment and other
social problems.
Gumbo said Robert Mugabe lambasted him during a meeting of senior
leaders of the ruling Zanu-PF party on Thursday night.
"We were accused of attempting to overthrow the president and it was
the president himself who led the charges," Zimbabwe's Daily News
quoted Gumbo as saying. "He says 'we have done wrong and should
leave the party', but this is just a smear campaign to eliminate people
who are standing by the vice president."
Another alleged conspirator named by The Sunday Mail is Didymus
Mutasa, a high-ranking official in the ruling party. Without citing
sources, the newspaper said another alleged plotter had met "potential
hit men" in South Africa and Israel.
Mugabe has often accused foreign powers, particularly Britain and the
United States, of trying to undermine him. Western leaders have
criticised Mugabe's human rights record.