Former Higher and Tertiary Education minister Jonathan Moyo
says he was not the architect of the so-called “Tsholotsho Declaration” that
sought to propel President Emmerson Mnangagwa into the Zanu PF presidium.
Moyo, who was ostracised after the failed “palace coup” in
2005 against long-time ruler Robert Mugabe, made the claims in a new interview
where he was shedding light on his tumultuous relationship with Mnangagwa.
The exiled former Zanu PF strategist said the meeting held
at Dinyane Secondary School in Tsholotsho where Zanu PF provincial chairmen
wanted to push for Mnangagwa’s ascendancy was a brainchild of speaker of
Parliament Jacob Mudenda and former senator Believe Gaule.
Mudenda was the Zanu PF provincial chairman for
Matabeleland North while Gaule was a district chairman in Tsholotsho. Moyo said Mnangagwa got him involved in the meeting as part
of a sinister plot.
“The request by Mudenda and Gaule for me to officially invite
Mnangagwa plus some cabinet ministers was done as a ploy by Mnangagwa’s cronies
to have my fingerprints in the organisation of the event in order to get me to
be seen as having endorsed it,” the former minister, now exiled in Kenya, told
the online publication Spotlight.
“ In particular, Gaule did this because he knew that I was
vehemently opposed to Mnangagwa’s shenanigans. In the end, I accepted to extend
the invitations and I asked Francis Nhema to go with me to Parliament Building
to invite Mnangagwa with whom I had no communication or access.
“Nhema did all the talking and Mnangagwa was only too happy
to accept the invitation, which he had in fact engineered.”
Moyo said he became part of the deal because he wanted
Mnangagwa to atone for his role in the Gukurahundi massacres.
“I accepted the request from Zanu PF Matabeleland North
Province and the party’s Tsholotsho DCC (District Coordinating Committee) after
resolving that I, with others I was in communication with in Matabeleland on
how best to deal with the region’s vexing problems, would use the opportunity
to get Mnangagwa to come to terms with and atone for his Gukurahundi atrocities
by supporting the region’s developmental agenda,” Moyo added.
“In addition, I saw Mnangagwa’s quest for a seat in Zanu
PF’s presidium as an opportunity to reform the presidency of the party and ipso
facto of the country’s presidency by rotating it among the Zezurus, Karangas,
Manyikas and Ndebeles.”
Gaule, a staunch Mnangagwa ally, was expelled from Zanu PF
for his role in organising the controversial meeting and at one time he became
an MDC senator.
He was readmitted into Zanu PF after Mnangagwa took over
from Mugabe following a military coup in 2017 and the following year he
complained that soldiers were used to elbow him out of the party’s primary
elections for the Tsholotsho North constituency. Standard
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