Moyo launches major push for Tsholotsho

Moyo launches major push for Tsholotsho

POPULAR: The bespectacled political science professor gives the victory sign as he is hoisted into the air by supporters at a rally in Tsholotsho on Friday 11 March

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By Staff Reporter

PROFESSOR Jonathan Moyo, the voluble ex-Zimbabwean Information Minister has launched a massive push for Tsholotsho constituency where he is standing as an independent candidate.

Moyo who was snubbed by the ruling Zanu PF party before being axed from Cabinet by President Robert Mugabe is favoured to win the contituency when Zimbabweans go to the polls on 31 March.

Campaigning in Tsholotsho has been low-key, and our correspondents say Moyo's posters are the only ones visible in the area. Moyo will fight for the right to represent the people of his home district against the opposition Movement for Democratic Change's (MDC) Mtoliki Sibanda and Musa Mathema of Zanu PF.

"Moyo's campaign is well-coordinated," said one of our correspondents. "There are a few standing walls and trees that don't have his posters. He is throwing everything he has to win Tsholotsho, and you don't want to bet against him going all the way."

As Moyo marshalled his supporters on Friday, the MDC was also planning to descend on Tsholotsho this weekend. The MDC's secretary general Welshman Ncube was expected to visit the constituency to drum-up support for Sibanda who won the seat during the 2000 parliamentary elections.

Sensing danger, Zanu PF's district committee sent an SOS to the national executive last week, pleading for the party's top leadership including Mugabe and his deputies to prioritise Tsholotsho.

Zanu PF's secretary for the commissariat Elliot Manyika was in Tsholotsho last week where he told traditional leaders, thought to be aligned to Moyo, to back Zanu PF's candidate.

Moyo has spent close to a billion dollars of his personal money on Tsholotsho. It is thought he is funded by his Zanu PF ally and Speaker of Parliament Emmerson Mnangagwa -- a beneficiary of corrupt diamond deals in the Congo, according to the United Nations.
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