Zimbabwe’s two Vice Presidents have blocked Jonathan Moyo’s hopes of being appointed into ZANU-PF’s powerful Politburo, saying that Moyo’s strong political ambitions could easily destabilize their ZANU-PF party.
“He is not trusted,” said a source, “They feel he is too ambitious and can harm the party. They see him as an unrepentant person.”
The two Vice Presidents are reported to have acted “in concert with Zanu-PF’s new national chairman, Simon Khaya Moyo, Zimbabwe’s former ambassador to South Africa”.
The Zimbabwe Times, now publishing from Zimbabwe after moving from the United States, reported Saturday that a ZANU-PF camp led by retired army commander Solomon Mujuru met to seal Moyo’s fate three days before the announcement of the new politburo on Friday.
“The Mujuru camp met Tuesday and resolved that Moyo should never be given a senior post because he insulted the party and could not be trusted anymore,” said the source. “Moyo’s fate was as good as sealed after he aligned himself with the Emmerson Mnangagwa faction of Zanu-PF, which now stands more or less beaten in the struggle to control the party.”
The President and the three other members in the presidium have to agree on appointments into the politburo, which comprises a few elite members of the party who make key decisions on behalf of the party.
Until Mugabe’s announcement on Friday Moyo looked set to land either the post of secretary for the commissariat or that of secretary for information and publicity.
Mugabe dismissed Moyo as Information Minister in 2005 after he defied a party directive not to contest a parliamentary seat which the party had reserved for a woman candidate in the 2005 parliamentary elections.
Moyo went on to win the seat and was to become independent legislator until his recent readmission into the party after which he was quickly appointed into the Zanu-PF central committee.
The source said the Zanu-PF leadership were also handed the invidious task of explaining its propensity to easily readmit Moyo into the powerful power structures when other long-serving members were subjected to disciplinary action before reappointment.
Soon after his ignominious exit from Zanu-PF Moyo fought endless battles with the party’s old guard including the late vice president Joseph Msika, who never concealed his rancour towards him.
Moyo, once described by Mugabe as clever but not wise, has been writing newspaper articles apparently advertising his availability ahead of the politburo announcement.
Observers said his attempts smacked of somebody trying to endear himself with the President ahead of the politburo announcement.
In the past, Moyo called Zanu-PF a tribal clique. He has also called on Mugabe to step down.
Moyo wrote in one of his articles, “That Mugabe must now go is thus no longer a dismissible opposition slogan but a strategic necessity that desperately needs urgent legal and constitutional action by Mugabe himself well ahead of the presidential election scheduled for March 2008 in order to safeguard Zimbabwe’s national interest, security and sovereignty.
He wrote in another, “One does not need to be a malcontent to see that, after 25 years of controversial rule and with the economy melting down as a direct result of that rule, Mugabe’s continued stay in office has become such an excessive burden to the welfare of the state and such a fatal danger to the public interest of Zimbabweans at home and in the Diaspora that each day that goes by with him in office leaves the nation’s survival at great risk while seriously compromising national sovereignty.”
At the weekend, Moyo said Zanu-PF appeared unwilling to infuse new blood into its structures.
“The continued emphasis by some insensitive Zanu-PF leaders on a selfish past, with claims we hear these days that “those who were not in the liberation struggle were not there and should not be there now” are simply not helpful to the party and are, in fact, counter-revolutionary,” said Moyo.
“It is very difficult for many well-meaning Zimbabweans who are committed to safeguarding the gains of the liberation struggle to understand how or why some Zanu-PF leaders who now make up the party’s critical old guard seem to have conveniently forgotten that they impacted and shaped our national politics in the liberation struggle when they were young people.”
Additional reporting by The Zimbabwe Times.
