WAR veterans have challenged President Robert Mugabe to “come clean” over Higher Education minister Jonathan Moyo’s unrestrained attacks on government programmes, as well as Vice-President Emmerson Mnangagwa.
BY RICHARD CHIDZA
Moyo, a reported leading figure in a Zanu PF faction known as G40, has repeatedly publicly savaged Mnangagwa’s alleged bid to succeed Mugabe.
Yesterday, Zimbabwe National Liberation War Veterans’ Association secretary-general, Victor Matemadanda called on Mugabe to act decisively and rein in Moyo.
“Mugabe chairs Cabinet, which adopted the command agriculture programme, Moyo was part of that decision-making and then comes out to rabidly oppose it. There can only be two things at play here: Either the President is playing everyone for fools and he is sending Moyo, as he claims to his friends: or there is lack of decisive action on Mugabe’s part,” Matemadanda told NewsDay.
He claimed Moyo was boasting to his friends he had Mugabe’s backing in his fight against Mnangagwa.
“Moyo is telling anybody who cares to listen that he has Mugabe’s blessings in everything he does. We are now beginning to believe him. Otherwise, how else does one get away with such kind of intransigence?
“All these people including Defence Forces Commander, General Constantino Chiwenga, who have crossed swords with Moyo, are doing so in defence of the President, but this is what they get in return,” lamented Matemadanda.
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War veterans have declared that they will support Mnangagwa’s bid to take over from Mugabe, while Moyo and his G40 acolytes have been oscillating between First Lady Grace Mugabe and lately Defence minister Sydney Sekeramayi.
Matemadanda said Mugabe did not need a rally to reprimand Moyo.
“The President does not need a rally to deal with Moyo because he can call him to order anytime. Is it not a case of double standards that when Tshinga Dube (War Veterans minister) urged for open succession discussion and the President to groom or anoint a successor, he was called in just after Cabinet for a reprimand, but not Moyo despite his declarations that Sekeramayi is fit to take over,” he said.
Chiwenga last week warned “Moyo has reached where we wanted him to”, but the minister has since hit back, accusing the army chief of “idiocy”. Moyo described Chiwenga as a “desperate politician in army uniform”.
The opposition last week called on Chiwenga to join full-time politics and “stop hiding” behind military garb and guns.
Matemadanda said Chiwenga was within his rights to call Moyo to order.
“When you have a minister opposing government programmes in public, in order to cause confusion and disrespect for Cabinet, then that becomes a national security threat. The army must protect the State and Chiwenga is right.
“Now it’s either the minister must resign from the government or the President must act in one way or another. Mugabe must tell us that ‘Moyo is my boy, do not touch him’ than to lead us all up the garden path by the nose,” the war vets boss said.
Mugabe’s relationship with war veterans has plummeted to unprecedented levels amid calls from the former fighters for him to hand over power.
