The growing influence and political resurrection of former Zimbabwe minister of information Jonathan Moyo in the past seven months is sharpening the bitter factional battle within Zanu-PF.
There is mounting uncertainty and division among Zanu-PF’s two factions, led by Joice Mujuru and Emmerson Mnangagwa, over the latest ambitions of the brash tactician.
Political speculation is that Moyo is being fronted by the Mnangagwa faction to head Zanu-PF’s election campaign and replace Webster Shamu, the party’s current political commissar and minister of information and publicity.
Shamu’s term as political commissar will expire in 2016 and he has the difficult task of reviving Zanu-PF’s waning support in the country in preparation for the next elections.
Zanu-PF spokesperson Rugare Gumbo dismissed the claims of behind-the-scenes tussling, saying: “I don’t know what you are talking about. Our politburo members are chosen at the congress and Moyo is our party member and a politburo member too. It is not true. This is political speculation by certain individuals.”
However, the Mujuru faction is opposed to Moyo’s ascendancy, wary that his rise could be used to manoeuvre it out of the succession race. As early as 2004 Moyo was linked to the Mnangagwa faction, when he overtly lobbied for Mnangagwa’s rise to become the country’s deputy president ahead of the incumbent Joice Mujuru in a “coup meeting” called the “Tsholotsho Declaration”.
President Robert Mugabe later fired Moyo as minister of information and from Zanu-PF’s 50-member politburo — the party’s highest decision-making body — in February 2005 and accused him of being the ringleader of the coup plot.
However, in December last year Mugabe reinstated Moyo to the politburo. The move was interpreted by observers as an attempt by Mugabe to rope in Moyo’s propaganda expertise.
Months later Moyo’s comeback trail has been littered with a raft of provocative statements that have Ârattled Zanu-PF structures.
A bruising loss in March to the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) over the post of speaker in Parliament is said to have done little to inspire confidence in Moyo among party members after he had promised to win the post back for Zanu-PF.
The speaker’s election was marred by allegations that several Zanu-PF legislators voted for the MDC’s Lovemore Moyo and this led to his victory over Simon Khaya Moyo, the chosen candidate.
Jonathan Moyo’s recent verbal spat with South Africa President Jacob Zuma, whom he described as a “tainted negotiator”, and his leading role in Zanu-PF’s delegation to the Southern African Development Community summit in South Africa last month, have further compounded claims of behind-the-scenes tussling to install him as the party’s chief strategist in preparation for the next elections.
Moyo has been making spirited calls for the arrest of Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai and is perceived to have been behind the arrest of Jameson Timba, a top Tsvangirai aide, who spent three days in police custody after he allegedly called Mugabe “a liar”.
Moyo has called for a crackdown on independent journalists, whom he accused of false reporting and of receiving Western funding.
Zanu-PF hawks remain fearful that Moyo’s brash style could hurt the party’s stability and image and provide easy political leverage for the MDC.
Last month Gumbo clashed openly with Moyo, saying, “he does not speak for the party”, only for Didymus Mutasa to emerge later and defend Moyo’s utterances as necessary steps to defend the party against imperialism. Mutasa is a fervent Mugabe ally and is the minister of state for presidential affairs. The contradictory statements expose the depth of Âdivisions within the faction-riddled party.
Said political analyst Eldred Masunungure: “Zanu-PF is no longer operating as an institution and depends entirely on one person to resuscitate the party.
“It must be worried, because where the party is going at this rate remains unclear. Why should Zanu-PF depend on one person? The defence of the party is a collective duty. Zanu-PF is utterly vulnerable because it is dependent on the skills of one person and that is tragic.”