BY MOSES MATENGA/ GARIKAI MAFIRAKUREVA FORMER MDC Alliance deputy treasurer-general Lillian Timveos, who recently defected to Zanu PF, has confirmed long-held fears that the ruling party was plotting to decimate the opposition party ahead of the 2023 elections after she claimed at the weekend that President Emmerson Mnangagwa, who she described as “my father”, had given her a “special task”. The former MDC Alliance top executive was unveiled together with former MDC-T secretary for local government, Blessing Chebundo at State House in Harare recently. “I saw it fit to come to Zanu PF. It doesn’t make sense that the President (Mnangagwa) is from here (Zvishavane) and yet he has never won in this area,” said Timveos, a former member of the late MDC founder Morgan Tsvangirai’s infamous “kitchen Cabinet”. “That must change in 2023. Don’t be afraid that I am here for positions. My father, the President, gave me a task to do, so don’t be afraid that I am here for positions. I am here to work for the party, don’t worry,” she told Zanu PF supporters in Zvishavane on Saturday. Timveos, however, could not disclose the nature of the task given to her, but Zanu PF sources said she had been tasked to divulge opposition party secrets and lure more top MDC Alliance officials to the ruling party ahead of the 2023 elections. The former MDC Alliance Zvishavane senator, who until recently was part of Nelson Chamisa’s inner circle, added: “I say he (Mnangagwa) is the people’s President because of the way I was welcomed in Zanu PF. You all know me and I am one of the people who thought Zanu PF was bad and I was very afraid, but it only took phone call, phone call after phone call for me to be where I am today. I can’t say much, but there are people I came with from the MDC Alliance.” Her remarks came shortly after former MDC Alliance Masvingo Central MP Jeffreyson Chitando last week claimed that Zanu PF was planning to launch Operation Armageddon that would see it taking over service delivery tasks in all urban areas from the MDC Alliance councils as part of efforts to lure votes. Zanu PF national commissar Victor Matemadanda last week disclosed that they were targeting over five million votes for Mnangagwa in 2023. This, he said, would be achieved by fishing from the MDC Alliance pond, whose leader Chamisa got over 2,1 million votes against the Zanu PF leader’s 2,4 million in the 2018 presidential poll. Matemadanda said they were expecting more defections from MDC Alliance in the coming few days. “At that rate, we will reach 2023 with only five people or no one from the MDC Alliance. We are mobilising people even from MDC Alliance and all their formations, Mthwakazi and other parties,” Matemadanda told NewsDay. Zanu PF’s Operation Armageddon, according to Chitando, would see line ministries superintend over key services such as waste collection and water distribution in urban centres to portray the opposition as failures. “Zanu PF is in panic mode as the urban voter population is rapidly increasing, while the rural population is drastic
