PRESIDENT Emmerson Mnangagwa allegedly blew his top and
lashed at Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (Zec) chairperson Priscillah Chigumba
after she allegedly went to his office with a proposal for electoral reforms, a
former Cabinet minister has claimed.
Exiled former Zanu PF strategist, Jonathan Moyo, revealed
this in his book, Excelgate, which he claims exposes how the 2018 presidential
elections were reportedly rigged in favour of Mnangagwa.
Government has, however, rubbished Moyo’s claims in the
book. ln his book, to be launched on December 13 in Harare, and has already
been sold to more than 200 people in advance, Moyo said Chigumba irked
Mnangagwa when she presented to him early this year some proposed reforms that
included a clause that the Zec chairperson should be appointed through a parliamentary
process.
“Chigumba then sought Mnangagwa’s approval of Zec’s
proposed electoral reforms. She was granted audience. To Chigumba’s utter
shock, Mnangagwa hit the roof and blew his top, asking her a series of
politically blinding questions: What is your motive? Who has sent you with
this? You are a sellout,” Moyo claimed in his book.
He wrote that Mnangagwa told Chigumba there would be no
electoral reforms and that “she should just go away”.
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He said Chigumba confided to her friends her experience at
the hands of Mnangagwa and that she has been contemplating leaving Zec and the
country out of fear.
But Justice minister Ziyambi Ziyambi yesterday said
Mnangagwa was agreeable to electoral reforms.
“Is he (Moyo) now a prophet? Maybe he is now a prophet who
knows what happens inside buildings and translates that into books?” Ziyambi
asked.
“The Zec chairperson does not go directly to the President
with electoral reforms because the President does not go to Parliament to
motivate Bills, so I don’t even understand Jonathan Moyo.
“There is evidence to show that the President is agreeable
to electoral reforms by setting up an inter-ministerial taskforce to look into
that and agreeing to looking into recommendations from observer missions in
order to look into opening democratic space.”
Ziyambi said it was absurd to assume that Mnangagwa would
oppose something he was pushing for, adding that under the late former
President Robert Mugabe, European observer missions were not allowed in unlike
now under the new dispensation.
“Does he have telescopic eyes from where he is hiding to
make such claims?” he asked.
Moyo also revealed the role of the Joint Operations Command
(JOC) in the political dynamics in the country and its role in deciding who
takes State power by whatever means.
“JOC, not Cabinet, not politburo, is the pivotal authority
in Zimbabwe,” Moyo’s book reads.
“JOC is the centre of power in Zimbabwe. It is the system.
JOC’s pivotal role is particularly pronounced during elections. This is because
of the obvious reason that elections are strategically important for deciding
who gets into power, when and how.
“Most Zimbabweans believe that elections in the country are
rigged, but they don’t know how the rigging is done, yet they think there is
one rigging formula that the ruling authorities apply to every election.
“This is what I understand from the endless questions I get
as a former Cabinet minister ‘who should know’ apparently because of my role as
a Zanu PF strategist and campaign manager, who wrote the party’s 2000 and 2013
election manifestos and who participated in the controversial 2002 presidential
campaign as Minister of Information and Publicity.”
Moyo said most ministers and politburo members were in the
dark on how elections were rigged as the information was a privilege for the
JOC and a selected few.
JOC comprises of senior officials from the Zimbabwe
National Army, Air Force of Zimbabwe, Zimbabwe Republic Police, Zimbabwe
Prisons and Correctional Services and Central Intelligence Organisation which
is responsible for the coordination of State security.
Defence minister Oppah Muchinguri, Zimbabwe Defence Forces
Commander General Philip Valerio Sibanda, Zimbabwe National Army Commander
Lieutenant-General Edzai Chimonyo, Air Force of Zimbabwe Commander Air Marshal
Elson Moyo, Police Commissioner-General Godwin Matanga, Zimbabwe Prisons and
Correctional Services Commissioner-General, Retired Major General Paradzayi
Zimondi and Central Intelligence Organisation director-general Isaac Moyo sit
in JOC.
The book is being published by Sapes Trust, a publishing
house that is credited for publishing the late former Vice-President Joshua
Nkomo’s book The Story of My Life and the late national hero Edgar Tekere’s
book A Lifetime of Struggle. Newsday
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