Chairmen disassociate themselves with extremeist

The bitter infighting inside Zimbabwe took yet another twist this week as the ten provincial chairmen disassociated themselves with claims by Themba Mliswa, the political extremist who held a media conference during which he said he was speaking on their behalf.

Mliswa called on Peter Chingoka, the board chairman, to account for recent events and repeated accusations of financial impropriety against board members as well as making threats that he had friends in high places who were behind him.

But the Zimbabwe Cricket website has said that last weekend the chairmen met and voted unanimously to disassociate themselves from Mliswa's remarks. A statement issued by them said: "While we do not wish to go into detail with regards to Mliswa's statements, and whilst we prefer to reserve our comments on his statements against certain individual members of the ZC interim board, our conscience is clear as we make this brief statement."

Mliswa was slung off the board in July, and the chairmen reiterated that he "does not represent any of the ten provinces".

While the removal of Mliswa from the scene - if that is what the upshot of this is - can be no bad thing, the chairmen's stance is hardly surprising given that by and large they are in effect appointees of the ZC hierarchy.

This is not the end of the unrest as Crispen Tsvarai, the senior executive who left the board a fortnight ago, has raised a number of issues which will need to be addressed.