Moyo set for Zanu PF exit

Moyo set for Zanu PF exit

MOYO

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By Staff Reporter

ZIMBABWEAN tyrant Robert Mugabe will drop his information minister from his Zanu PF party's supreme decision making body - the politburo, it was claimed Thursday.

Information Minister Jonathan Moyo -- dropped the from Zanu PF central committee last week -- will now have to start afresh and fight for a parliamentary seat to retain some form of influence in the party, the privately owned Daily Mirror reports.

Moyo’s name was deleted as a central committee nominee by the Presidency he allegedly attempted to undermine by “clandestinely” inviting senior members of the party, including provincial governors and party provincial chairpersons, to a “high-powered meeting” in Tsholotsho a few days before Zanu PF’s National People’s Congress.

Highly placed sources within the ruling party said the only person who could throw Moyo a lifeline was the man who thrust him into the high echelons of the party, President Mugabe who, however, has reprimanded him for hosting the Tsholotsho meeting.

What irked the Presidency, the source said, was that after having been caught with his pants down, Moyo wrote a letter exonerating himself from the alleged coup attempt to remove the founding fathers of the party and copied it to The Chronicle for publication, before the Presidency had a chance to respond. His target audience still remained a mystery, the source said, as it was an internal matter.

“He thinks the presidium is comprised of fools,” the source said. “Good luck, to the person or people he was targeting when he abused his control over the newspaper. It’s unfortunate, but he will have to start afresh and regain the support of the party. He will have to go back to the grassroots and start afresh if he is a genuine party cadre and not a plant.”

Contacted for comment on whether Moyo had written a letter to the Presidency exonerating himself, party national chairman John Nkomo said: “Moyo’s letter is a nonevent.”

Moyo, known to step on the toes of all and sundry, including the ruling party’s presidency and the media, has been accused of propagating hate-speech in the media.

However, his political flirtation with the ruling party is now waning, with sources in Zanu PF saying that the party’s top leadership had decided that Moyo, like everybody else, should rekindle his faltering political career from the grassroots.

“Moyo cannot be appointed into the Politburo. All members of the Politburo will come from the central committee and this effectively means the minister has to start from the grassroots if he is aspiring for a position of influence in the party. When we talk of the grassroots, we mean the cell,” said another highly placed source.

His exclusion from the central committee, the sources said, was punishment for the associate professor for allegedly organising an unsanctioned meeting in Tsholotsho, Matabeleland North, last month to plot to scuttle the nomination of Vice-President Joyce Mujuru and block the re-nomination of Vice-President Joseph Msika and national chairman John Nkomo into the party presidium.
Moyo was allegedly backing Speaker of Parliament Emmerson Mnangagwa and women’s league boss Thenjiwe Lesabe as the party’s two vice-presidents and Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa as national chairman.

Six Zanu PF provincial chairpersons who also attended the meeting that came up with the alleged “Tsholotsho Declaration” have since been suspended from the party for six months.

Zimbabwe National Liberation War Veterans’ Association (ZNLWVA) leader Jabulani Sibanda, who took part in the meeting, was slapped with a four-year suspension.

The sources said Moyo worsened his case when he leaked a report he had written to Zanu PF’s Politburo explaining his involvement in the Tsholotsho meeting to The Chronicle, a state-controlled newspaper based in Bulawayo.
The Zanu PF leadership, the sources added, questioned Moyo on why he had leaked the report if it was meant for the Politburo and accused him of attempting to mislead the party.

“He publicised his report in The Chronicle… It was the Presidency that struck him off the central committee list and it is likely that he will be barred from contesting in the party’s primary parliamentary elections,” the source added.
Chronicle editor Stephen Ndlovu has since been censured by the Secretary for Information and Publicity in the Office of the President and Cabinet, George Charamba, for publishing the “leaked” document.

Moyo, who has since fallen out with President Mugabe as his spin-doctor, is eyeing Tsholotsho constituency.

“Even if he wins the primaries, he still has to go for vetting and that is where it is key,” the source said.

Efforts to get comment from Moyo, a critic of the private media, proved fruitless last night.
Additional reporting Daily Mirror
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