Zanu PF politburo to grill Moyo

Zanu PF politburo to grill Moyo

MOYO

• Moyo splashes cash in race for Tsholotsho

• Nkomo declares war on 'saboteurs and infiltrators'

• Mugabe's spin doctor spends millions on album launch

• Moyo sings for his supper

• Mugabe's spin doctor eyes presidency

• Zanu PF at war over Mugabe's successor

• Deported Mugabe ally calls Moyo 'gay rant'

• Matsanga deported in Sky News row

• Moyo for President?

• Sky News debacle tears Zanu PF apart

• Moyo orders Sky News out, again

• Moyo 'to fill jails with lying journalists'

• Moyo clashes with Shamuyarira over Sky

• Moyo orders Sky News crew out

By Nkululeko Sibanda

INFORMATION Minister, Jonathan Moyo is today set to be arraigned before an investigating committee appointed by Zanu PF's decision making body -- the Politburo -- over his conduct following vitriolic attacks on senior ruling party officials.

Politburo and other high-ranking officials were on Tuesday mum on the issue, insisting that politburo discussions were for the politburo alone and not for public consumption.

Nathan Shamuyarira, Zanu PF’s information and publicity secretary, said it was taboo for him and other party and politburo members to discuss the goings-on in the politburo to members of the public as this action had far-reaching effects.

“That is a politburo issue which cannot be discussed in the public domain as it is for the party members and not for the public,” he said.

Despite the refusals to discuss the issue, The Daily Mirror newspaper reports growing despondency among senior Zanu PF officials over the manner in which Moyo has been conducting business in recent months.

Senior party officials who have been subjected to Moyo’s tirades include national chairman, John Nkomo, Vice President Joseph Msika (over the Kondozi farm issue), Shamuyarira and other officials among the old guard of the former PF Zapu.

According to sources, a discussion on Moyo’s conduct was raised during a politburo meeting last week by retired General Solomon Mujuru, Thenjiwe Lesabe, and Dumiso Dabengwa, among others, who are said to have asked President Mugabe to “cut Jonathan Moyo to size”.

They said the continued attacks on the party’s senior members could have an adverse effect on the party’s campaign come next year as people could regard the goings-on as clear confusion reigning supreme in the party.

Said one source: “Some of the politburo members questioned Moyo’s continued attack on the party’s official mouthpiece, The Voice (formerly known as The People’s Voice), saying there was supposed to be harmony between Moyo’s office and that of the paper.”

Moyo attacked the paper after it reported that there were discussions between the ruling Zanu PF and the opposition MDC over electoral reforms proposed by the cabinet. Moyo described The Voice editor, Lovemore Mataire as “ideologically confused” and accused him of publishing “complete falsities”.

“It is appalling that an editor of an organ of the ruling party can get it so wrong,” a statement from Moyo’s office read.

However, Mataire hit back through a “Candid Brief from the Editor” last week saying, “As an editor, I will not be intimidated by individuals whose dubious past always haunts them to a level where they are now evidently suffering from a serious megalomaniac disease - trying to cover up for the time that they were on the other side of the political divide.”

Mataire ominously ended: “I am not a prophet, but let it be known that the people who are watching in silence are surely not stupid or dummies. One cannot continue insulting everyone in the party without any reprisals. In Shona they say: Kana ngoma yoririsa inenge yoda kuparuka.”

The Voice, which is the official mouthpiece of the ruling party, had hitherto played second fiddle to Moyo’s department even on party matters. But this week the paper declared that it was reclaiming “its rightful status as the mouthpiece of the party” and would, in that regard, launch a “Presidential column to be written by the First Secretary and President of the party, RG Mugabe.”

Party sources disclosed to the Daily Mirror that although The Voice had successfully sought an exclusive interview with President Mugabe, which was subsequently published in this week’s issue, officials from Moyo’s office sneaked in the Sunday Mail’s political editor and Moyo’s blue-eyed boy, Munyaradzi Huni to also cover the interview.

The sources said President Mugabe is said to have expressed strong reservations at this invasion of what was essentially supposed to be an exclusive interview with the party mouthpiece.
Daily Mirror
JOIN THE DEBATE ON THIS ARTICLE ON THE NEWZIMBABWE.COM FORUMS
newsdesk@newzimbabwe.com