“I studied electoral politics in Zimbabwe: 1985-92 & published VOTING FOR DEMOCRACY. In 2000 I managed ZanuPF election campaign as a consultant; in 2002 as information minister & in 2013 as a campaign manager. In 2018 I used my contacts & experience to write EXCELGATE!” he said.
In his first book Moyo was an academic and the book was to inform. He has said very little about Zimbabwe electoral politics in the period 2000 to 2017 because it would have been self incriminating. It is no secrete that he was mastermind behind Zanu PF vote rigging activities. His last book focuses on what Mnangagwa did that was new and left out all the dirty that could easily be traced back to Moyo’s vote rigging manuals.
How convenient!
“Looking back over the last 20 years, the people have squandered three opportunities for real change in 2000; then 2009 to 2013; and in 2017 when ZanuPF & the Army dug their own grave only for the people to fail to bury the two. Now there’s yet another opportunity: 2020!” confessed the sell-out Moyo.
In 2000 Zanu PF use the white farm invasions as cover for using violence against its political opponents. Indeed the farm invasions violence flared up again and again during elections for the next decade. Jonathan Moyo has often boasted of being the one who help Zanu PF win the elections post 2000 era.
The opportunity to bring about meaningful democratic change during the 2009 to 2013 GNU was lost because Zanu PF bribed Morgan Tsvangirai and his MDC with the trappings of high office; the ministerial limos, very generous salaries and allowance, a US$4 million mansion for Tsvangirai, etc. With their snouts in the feeding trough, MDC leaders forgot about implementing the reforms. There is no doubt that Jonathan Moyo played a major role in keeping making sure MDC leaders where distracted throughout the five years!
The only change Jonathan Moyo wanted to see following the 2017 military coup was for the people, SADC and the world at large to reject the coup and reinstating Mugabe and yours truly, Jonathan Moyo himself.
Jonathan Moyo and his fellow G40 members who were booted out of Zanu PF in the November 2017 coup are still entertaining hopes of staging a comeback. Hence the reason Moyo and company are very careful to blame everything that has gone wrong in Zimbabwe on Mnangagwa and his fellow November 2017 coup gang. Moyo and his Excelgate book is laser focusing on Mnangagwa as the only one who is illegitimate and not the whole Zanu PF regime!
“While there are many wrongs surrounding Zimbabweans today, a particularly insidious wrong that’s crying out for righting is the stolen 30 July 2018 presidential election, preceded by the 15 Nov 2017 military coup & followed by brutal massacres on 1 Aug 2018 & 14-28 Jan 2019!” Jonathan Moyo argues.
Jonathan Moyo’s book is about the dodgy compilation, on Microsoft Excel Sheet format and hence the name of the book with the gate borrowed from Richard Nixon’s infamous Watergate scandal, of the presidential election results from the 11 000 plus Polling stations.
Moyo has failed to mention 3 million Zimbabweans in the diaspora were denied the vote, that ZEC failed to produce a verifies voters’ roll, that there was no free public media, that the usual partisan behaviour of the Chiefs reduced rural voters into medieval serfs beholden to Zanu PF abused, etc. All these things render the whole election process flawed, illegal and meaningless. It is nonsense to expect that such a flawed electoral process could therefore produce a legitimate result even if the compilation of the result had been above board.
It was no accident that Moyo has ignored the denying of Zimbabweans in the diaspora the vote, the failure to produce a verified voters’ roll, etc. Most of these flaws and illegalities are the norm in Zimbabwean elections and the glaring hypocrisy of flagging then now would have been too much even for seasoned sell-out and hypocrite like him.
The root cause of Zimbabwe’s economic meltdown and political paralysis is the country’s failure to hold free, fair and credible elections. And the way forward has to look at implementing the democratic reforms to stop all the flaws and illegalities and not just the Excelgate ones only. It is only by implementing all the democratic reforms that we can expect to dismantle the dictatorship and not just remove one dictator.
“Compatriots, much as I would like to, sadly I’m unable to wish you a happy & prosperous new year not because of anything personal but because happiness & prosperity are no longer possible in Zimbabwe due to the live coup against the will of the people!” professed Professor Jonathan Moyo.
Happiness and prosperity have not been possible ever since this corrupt, vote rigging and tyrannical Zanu PF regime got into power in 1980. Of course, Professor Moyo must accept personal responsibility for the sorry state the nation is in because it was his work, as the party’s self proclaimed chief strategist and propagandist, that enable Zanu PF to have an iron grip on power and for it to last 40 years and counting.
