Ever since his re-election Professor Moyo has embarked on a futile personal political crusade that has absolutely no input from the constituency that elected him. Because his political mission is personal and inane he has only managed to disingenuously further blemish none other than himself and Zanu PF following the party’s ill advised re-admittance of the Tsholotsho North legislator with a soiled political career that any serious party would exercise extreme caution about before positioning him in its ranks.
Professor Moyo’s March 2008 re-election by the narrowest of margins was out of the MDC-T largesse. The MDC-T accurately assessed that Professor Moyo, then in political wilderness following his unceremonious suspension from Zanu PF over the Tsholotsho declaration which in turn had transformed him into a rabid critic of the then ruling party,
was better positioned than anyone to defend the Tsholotsho seat against a Zanu PF challenge if the votes were not split among opposition parties. The expectation that Professor Moyo would close ranks with Zanu PF opponents to reciprocate the favour was however ill advised as it never materialised. Instead no sooner had the prevaricating Professor been re-elected than he turned against the MDC-T goodwill towards his retention of the seat by rejoining Zanu PF and thus delivering the party the seat MDC-T thought it had protected from the same party.In the comfort of the safety of his seat, the ungrateful Professor Moyo started castigating his MDC-T benefactors over the withdrawal of the party Presidential contestant Morgan Tsvangirai from the unjustified and bloodstained Presidential runoff election and his appointment of Tendai Biti and Roy Bennett as Finance Minister and Deputy Agriculture Minister respectively.
Professor Moyo concluded and declared that the cumulative effect of the MDC-T’s ‘ill advised appointments and withdrawal from the dubious Presidential runoff was to bury the party in political oblivion as its Finance minister nominee would perform dismally and the Agriculture portfolio appointee would embarrass the party through his Rhodesian recolonisation agenda. None of his prophecies in this regard have materialised to date and in reality the Finance Minister has outperformed all other Ministerial portfolios to date.
Professor Moyo relied on the deductions to announce his intentions to revive his membership in Zanu PF and was indeed re-admitted and rewarded with a seat in the party’s Central Committee. Further promises of a Politburo appointment should he refrain from insubordinate conduct and more crucially, recover the Parliament Speaker position that had been won by Lovemore Moyo of the MDC-T and cause a major rift within MDC-T.
It has always been these Zanu PF pre-conditions of his total readmission that have motivated Professor Moyo to align with MDC-M legislators Moses Mzila Ndlovu, Siyabonga Ncube and Patrick Dube in a High Court challenge against Lovemore Moyo’s election which they carried all the way to the Supreme Court to secure annulment. The ill considered decision to spearhead the legal action to reverse Lovemore Moyo’s election as the first none Zanu PF sponsored Speaker of Parliament sealed Professor Moyo’s political fate. His independence as a member of parliament came under intense scrutiny that left him no choice but to disclose in whose interest he was acting which turned out to be Zanu PF’s as he duly rejoined the loathed party.
While the emotive matter was pending in the Courts, Professor Moyo embarked on his other crucial assignment to complete his ingratiation within Zanu PF ranks. The broader terms of this assignment were for the Professor to destabilise cohesion in the MDC-T by whatever means in order to weaken it. He started by attacking the pedigree of MDC-T ministers in the coalition government and created fictional factions and sub factions within the most popular political party in the country. Disclosures that Strive Masiyiwa was poised to topple Tsvangirai from the leadership of the party were planted in compromised sate media came to nothing at least up to now. The attempt to create a wedge between Tsvangirai and Biti also failed flat. The attempt to stir revolt after the ministerial reshuffle likewise failed to divide the party. Ironically Professor Moyo who had not been given a single sentence space in the state media from the time he was unceremoniously fired by Mugabe was now given acres of space for his opinionated articles that sought to create rifts in MDC-T top ranks.
The Professor became the official informal Zanu PF spokesman on budgets and fiscal policies, Sadc and most national issues notwithstanding that he is not in the party’s information department structures. In this informal role he would trivialise genuine complaints about failed implementation or breaches of the GPA and Constitution against and by Mugabe while agitating for the aggrieved parties to be excluded from government and the restoration of the vicious and disastrous Zanu PF monolithic rule.
When the MDC-T announced a partial disengagement from the coalition government following stunted implementation of outstanding issues Professor Moyo was the first to rubbish the initiative and implore President Mugabe to unilaterally proceed with the running of the government. When the Supreme Court ruled in his favour over the Speakership suit and the MDC-T president slammed the decision as being evidence of Zanu PF patronage by the Judiciary, Professor Moyo led calls for the arrest and incarceration of the MDC-T President who is the country’s much loved Premier for contempt of court.
But it did not take long for the ecstatic and overzealous professor to eat humble pie as in each instance the MDC-T initiatives paid off handsome political dividends for the party and pushed its agenda forward. The re-election of the Speaker was the straw that broke the Professor’s spine. Ever since that embarrassing defeat of the Zanu PF Chairman Simon K Moyo by the MDC-T chairman Lovemore Moyo he has been running around in circles like a headless chicken. For most rational people Professor Moyo has always been a headless political maniac. Now even doubters are convinced that he indeed is a lost cause.
The problem is that Professor Moyo is yet to realise that he is no longer a Minister but an MP for Tsholotsho North Constituency where his efforts must be focussed. Every single issue he has tried to tackle was not handed to him by his constituency for representation to the government. Infact he has not once spoken about the numerous issues that are bothering the people of Tsholotsho who elected him to parliament. Instead all his efforts have been focussed on destabilising or discrediting the MDC-T a party which did not even contest his re-election. Clearly he has gone too far and will not be given a free ride to Parliament come the next elections.
More pertinently though his latest attacks on Sadc and the AU over the Livingstone Sadc Troika resolutions and the Libyan crisis have done more harm to Zanu PF than anything the party has done or omitted to do since the formation of the Zimbabwe coalition government where the party should in truth not be represented but for the favours it received from Sadc and the AU.
That Professor Moyo is in trouble over the hostile comments he published is no longer an issue but rather what will happen to him. It is unlikely he will be supported to stand on the Zanu PF ticket for re-election in the next elections. He is likely to be censured and if his articles are to be published they will now require the green light from the party’s information and publicity department. His political star is dim at present but it will be pitch dark in the not so distant future as his revived membership is in focus at the highest party level.
But being a deluded and uncontrollable lose cannon the party will not move swiftly against him but rather slowly but surely out manage him. All that remains to decide is when his membership will be censured and not whether or not he should be censured.
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