Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe on Friday dropped three Cabinet ministers from his party’s highest decision-making body, including controversial Information Minister Jonathan Moyo, the state news agency reported.
Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa, Agriculture Minister Joseph Made and Moyo were dropped from the politburo at a meeting of the ruling Zanu-PF.
The three have been connected to a recent meeting of several party officials in western Zimbabwe that was reportedly intended to scupper Mugabe’s choice of Joyce Mujuru — seen as a potential successor to the president — as one of the country’s two vice-presidents, New Ziana said.
”From the changes that were announced it was evident that all those who were dropped … were connected to the illegal meeting in Tsholotsho in November this year,” the agency said.
The meeting to which the three have been linked — now dubbed the Tsholotsho Declaration after the district where it was held — also saw the suspension of six provincial party chairpersons.
Moyo, an outspoken opponent of the West who had endeared himself to the government with his defence of Mugabe’s controversial seizure of white-owned land in 2000, Chinamasa and Made are seen as young Turks in a party dominated by veterans of the country’s nationalist struggle against white minority rule.
It was not clear if the trio’s fall from favour within the party presaged a possible fall from their Cabinet posts.
Recently, speculative media reports have suggested that Moyo may lose his post as information minister in a Cabinet reshuffle next year.
The three ministers had backed a rival candidate for the vacant post of vice-president and were against the nomination of Mujuru, the minister for water resources, who was subsequently elected to the post with Mugabe’s support. — Sapa-AFP