Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, who is on the campaign trail ahead of next week’s parliamentary polls, on Wednesday accused former information minister Jonathan Moyo of plotting a military coup to unseat him.
Addressing ruling-party supporters in Tsholotsho, Moyo’s home village, Mugabe queried why his former protégé sought a meeting with army commander Phillip Sibanda last month.
“What did he want from Sibanda?” Mugabe asked, addressing his supporters in the constituency where Moyo is contesting March 31 parliamentary elections as an independent candidate.
“Did he want him to stage a coup in his favour?” Zimbabwe’s long-time leader asked of Moyo, the architect of the country’s tough media laws.
Mugabe said Moyo remained quiet when he quizzed him on the alleged coup at a meeting on February 17, where Mugabe and Vice-President Joyce Mujuru tried to persuade Moyo not to stand as an independent.
Moyo decided last month to register to contest the elections as an independent after the ruling Zanu-PF suspended him for attending an unsanctioned meeting in Tsholotsho, about 570km west of the capital, Harare.
Mugabe dismissed the 48-year-old Moyo on February 19 following his decision to stand as an independent in the polls, which will be closely watched as a test of Zimbabwe’s commitment to hold a free and fair vote.
Exiles watch from the sidelines
Meanwhile, the huge numbers of British-based Zimbabwean exiles will watch this month’s parliamentary elections in their home country with keen interest, but an equally keen realisation there is nothing they can do to shape the verdict.
The colonial ruler of what was then Rhodesia from 1923 to 1980, Britain has hostile relations with the Mugabe regime.
Mugabe routinely castigates London for supposedly wanting to reimpose white rule over the country, while Britain bitterly condemns the Zimbabwean government for human rights abuses and corruption.
The situation is complicated by the enormous Zimbabwean population in Britain, sometimes dubbed “Harare North” for its drawing power for exiles.
No one knows the precise numbers in Britain, partly because many entered illegally. A recent study by Beacon Mbiba at Britain’s University of Reading cited estimates ranging from below 400Â 000 to more than a million.
However, this enormous community, by far the biggest outside Africa, will have no say in the election.
Earlier this month, the Supreme Court in Harare threw out an application by seven British-based Zimbabwean exiles to be allowed to vote in the polls, a test case for the diaspora community of three million or so.
The decision was no surprise in Zimbabwe’s politicised judicial system, given that the majority of exiles tend to be anti-Mugabe.
Attitudes were illustrated in a recent survey by the International Organisation for Migration, which found 87% of Zimbabweans in Britain citing “improvements” in the political situation as a pre-condition for returning home.
In place of the vote, some Zimbabweans in Britain were planning other events, such as a demonstration outside the Zimbabwean high commission in London on polling day, said Margaret Ling from the non-partisan British Zimbabwe Society.
“There’s one line of argument [in Zimbabwe] that the elections should be boycotted because they are not free and fair, others say you should all go and use your vote,” she said. “I would imagine you would find these views represented in the Zimbabwean community here.”
Ling said she personally knows of no one planning to fly to Zimbabwe to vote, adding: “It’s fairly expensive to go home just for that.”
One man hoping to make a difference is veteran journalist Wilf Mbanga, editor of The Zimbabwean, a weekly paper produced on a shoestring by volunteers in southern England, and printed both there and in South Africa, from where it is also sold in Zimbabwe.
Mbanga, the former editor of opposition paper The Daily News who fled Zimbabwe in 2003 after his title fell foul of the country’s tough media laws, has just launched an internet version of The Zimbabwean to try to make up for its tiny, 10Â 000-copy print run.
“The election time was the best time to launch, as there is heightened political awareness during that period,” he said.
The idea of the paper was conceived during an initial stay in The Netherlands after leaving Zimbabwe, Mbanga said.
“I felt cut off from the news from home, and I realised that all the other Zimbabweans were in a similar position,” he said.
Although The Zimbabwean is permitted to be sold in his home country for now, Mbanga said he harbours serious doubts about the paper’s future after the election.
“It worries us, because we know that they are planning to ban us,” he said. “Once they have got through the election I think you will see that something will happen.” — Sapa-AFP
On the net:
The Zimbabwean