Jonathan Moyo sold MDC secrets to gain Zanu-PF readmission

Published: 28 May 2018

PRESIDENTIAL spokesperson George Charamba has revealed how exiled former higher education minister Jonathan Moyo betrayed opposition comrades in the MDC in order to be readmitted into the ruling Zanu-PF party.

According to NewZimbabwe.com, Moyo was introduced to active representative politics by then President Robert Mugabe through the 2000 appointment as information minister despite not having been elected to parliament.

He was later expelled from both government and Zanu-PF in 2005 after he had gone against a party directive not to contest a seat which was reserved for a woman candidate in elections which were held same year.

But before his expulsion, he was already a dead man walking as he was singled out by Mugabe as being the brains behind the ill-fated Tsholotsho secret meeting which claimed the political scalps of half a dozen Zanu-PF provincial chairs.

The meeting had been called to torpedo what was Joice Mujuru's impending appointment as Vice President at the expense of her rival Emmerson Mnangagwa.

Mugabe summarily suspended the chairs who were involved but left an anguished Moyo guessing about his political future, hence the latter's bold decision to seek election as independent MP for Tsholotsho North after cutting deals with the opposition.

Moyo then served a truncated 2005-08 term as independent MP and later cut deals with the opposition not to contest him in 2008 after he had convinced his new allies that he had completely broken with his Zanu-PF past.

He would later dump the opposition and return to Zanu-PF, leaving the MDC regretting their decision to not contest him.

Writing in his revived State media column, Charamba, once top aide to Mugabe, revealed Moyo later leaked opposition secrets to Zanu-PF in attempts to gain readmission.

"Did I say characteristic? I meant it," Charamba said while trying to explain how treacherous Moyo was.

"Check what he did when he found himself in Parliament as an insignificant independent. Rejected by the MDC-T, and aware that his "Gukurahundi Bill" bore no traction, he reached out, sold all to Zanu-PF.

"He gave long nights of de-briefing the system on his erstwhile colleagues in the opposition, all to be readmitted into the Zanu-PF fold.

"Zanu-PF richly mined intelligence, and made itself stronger for that time. Of course it later paid dearly for it, when the man got back to his congenital proclivities, inside the Party."

The revelations could also explain widely held beliefs that Moyo was part of Zanu-PF's 2013 election strategy even though he was not even a party member.

Zanu-PF, in 2013, posted a thumping victory over the opposition which claims of massive rigging of the vote.
- newzimbabwe

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