Zimbabwe's ex-liberation fighters are reportedly set to occupy strategic positions within the ruling Zanu-PF party to avoid power struggles that dogged the revolutionary party in recent years.

According to the state-owned Herald newspaper, Zanu-PF secretary for legal affairs Patrick Chinamasa said that the party had resolved to elect a former freedom fighter as the party's political commissar.

Chinamasa said that the resolution would be rectified at the party's forthcoming special congress in December.

"We sat as the central committee and resolved that as we go forward we should respect the war veterans. We agreed that they should be in strategic positions of the party and government, as long as they have requisite qualifications," Chinamasa was quoted as saying.

Chinamasa's remarks came amid calls by the ex-freedom fighters to kick out "all cowards who cheered on" as former first lady Grace Mugabe and the Generation 40 cabal allegedly captured former president Robert Mugabe.

According to NewsDay, the Zimbabwe National Liberation War Veterans' Association Mashonaland West provincial chair Blessed Runesu Gezarged urged President Emmerson Mnangagwa to dump all those who failed to defend him when he was kicked out of Mugabe's government.

Among those who were singled out were Zanu-PF finance secretary Obert Mpofu, information secretary Simon Khaya Moyo and war veterans' secretary Sydney Sekeramayi, as they allegedly "strayed from the party ethos and should not be rewarded with politburo and Cabinet positions".