Successsion War at the ZANU Ruling Party
Mugabe's spin doctor eyes presidency
By Mduduzi Mathuthu, 03/06/2004
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Moyo, a former arch critic of President Mugabe’s regime is now its foremost advocate, directing government policy and drawing up legislation to entrench the 80-year-old leader’s hold on power.
After Mugabe opened the floor for debate within his Zanu PF party to find a successor, Moyo has positioned himself as a potential candidate by scheming against senior officials within the party.
Although unspoken, Moyo's ambition has never been in doubt.
Moyo’s major weapon for his strategy has been the manipulation of state media, notably the government-run Herald newspaper which has been growingly critical of Mugabe’s touted successors – Speaker of Parliament Emmerson Mnangagwa and Zanu PF national chairman John Nkomo.
Analysts say Moyo, a former university lecturer is now the most powerful minister in Zimbabwe - feared and loathed in equal measure within the ruling party because of his closeness to Mugabe.
The campaign to discredit the front-runners in the race to replace Mugabe has also sucked in senior ruling party stalwarts Nathan Shamuyarira and Vice President Joseph Msika who have all been openly opposed by Moyo on matters of policy in a bid to undermine them.
As part of this strategy, Moyo began a Saturday column in the Herald which runs under a pseudonym – Nathaniel Manheru (Moyo’s Christian name is Nathaniel) – which is used to attack his opponents.
“Moyo has always said to me I must aim higher,” one of the Minister’s friends said this week. “He says that if you are a school teacher, your ambition should be the headmaster and if you are a politician, you are aiming to be President. I don’t see how he will offer advice on something he doesn’t practise himself.”
The Herald began its offensive against Mnangagwa when it broke with tradition by disclosing to its readers that a “senior” ruling Zanu PF party politician had been implicated in a gold scandal in Kwekwe.
Media analysts said this was a curious development on the part of the Herald which has a reputation for neglecting to report on criminal activity by ruling party officials.
The Herald also enthusiastically greeted an announcement that Zanu PF was to probe accounts of its companies which Mnangagwa has been collectively responsible for since independence.
The paper once again sprang to action when the Kondozi Estate debacle broke out. As Vice President Joseph Msika vowed the farm would never be seized and given to the government-run Arda, Moyo was telling the Herald “Kondozi is gone for good.”
Msika finally gave up the fight, but insisted he would not be defeated by “immoral little boys”, disclosing in the same interview that President Mugabe had advised him to “let go”.
Then last week, Moyo took on Nkomo and Shamuyarira at once.
The Herald screamed on its front page with the headline “Major problems emerge with land reform”. The story, the stuff that would usually get Moyo frothing at the mouth, was planted to discredit Nkomo who was accused of writing letters to resettled black farmers directing them to leave.
“Not all is well with the scheme since the splitting-up of the Ministry of Lands, Agriculture and Rural Resettlement and the establishment of the Presidential Land Implementation Committee chaired by Cde John Nkomo,” the Herald mourned.
Conveniently for the Herald, Nkomo “could not be reached for comment.”
Nkomo finally got his opportunity to respond to the Herald in Parliament, in response to a question from journalist-turned-politician Kindness Paradza, himself an arch critic of Moyo’s media laws.
"This business of saying political analysts, new farmers and legal experts does not help anyone"
Nkomo said: "Those stories that have been referred to are false as the writer of the stories mention no names and this business of saying political analysts, new farmers and legal experts does not help anyone.”
Also in the same week, Moyo clashed with Mugabe’s biographer Shamuyarira after Zanu PF invited a Sky News crew into the country to interview President Mugabe following lengthy discussions with the UK-based Zanu PF supporter David Nyekorach Matsanga, a close friend of Mnangagwa.
Moyo who rushed through Parliament tough new legislation banning foreign reporters on Zimbabwean soil ordered the Sky News crew to return to Britain, but was vetoed by Shamuyarira.
Before the Sky News crew could interview Mugabe, Moyo ordered them to leave – much to the chagrin of senior ruling party officials.
“Shamuyarira had to approach the President to reign in Jonathan Moyo,” a senior official in Zanu PF’s decision making body – the politburo - told New Zimbabwe.com this week.
Sky News were later invited back and interviewed Mugabe for almost 45 minutes, but in an act of vengeance, Moyo sent nine officials from his office to meet Matsanga at the Harare International Airport where he was roughed up and ordered to return to Britain.
Throughout the Sky News row, the Herald consistently claimed the British crew was in the country at the behest of Ugandan national Matsanga. When Shamuyarira sent them a statement to correct this, the Herald flatly refused to print his correction.
“The Sky News team that has been filming in Zimbabwe in the last ten days was invited to come to Zimbabwe by Zanu PF. The statement given to your readers that they were invited by someone else is not correct,” Shamuyarira said in the statement to the Herald.
The privately owned Daily Mirror newspaper, quoting sources, said Moyo suspected that Shamuyarira intended to use the Sky News documentaries to advance the profile of lands and land resettlement minister and Zanu PF chairman, John Nkomo as a leading contender in the succession race.
Moyo, the sources said, also suspected that Matsanga was interested in having Mnangagwa receive positive profiling, thus selling him as an acceptable candidate to succeed President Mugabe.
After Sky News interviewed Reserve Bank governor Gideon Gono, Nkomo and Mnangagwa, Moyo invited a team of journalists from the Kenyan East African Standard to interview Mugabe. By this, the Mirror said, Moyo was using the media in the region to create a platform for himself.
A report in the East African Standard which came after the visit to Zimbabwe said: “Analysts in Zimbabwe view Tourism (sic) and Information minister Prof. Jonathan Moyo as the favourite to succeed Mugabe. Of the cabinet ministers, he is the closest to the President and the most powerful.
But it all could end badly for the political science professor, according to Zanu PF officials who spoke to New Zimbabwe.com this week.
“He was enemy number one when he was criticising us before his supposed conversion,” a politburo member said. “He is still enemy number one today and soon, Mugabe will have to decide who his friends are - those who have stood by him through thick and thin or a liberation war deserter, probably the only man to call him a dictator and to sit in Cabinet.”
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