A United States embassy official described Zimbabwe’s Former Information Minister Jonathan Moyo as a political chameleon, a master at changing his spots, and a man driven by personal ambition.
In a cable released by Wikileaks which he dispatched on 20 July 2005 Charge d’Affaires Eric T. Schultz said Moyo’s courage in publicly taking on the Robert Mugabe regime at a time when few others seemed inclined to do so made him a potentially pivotal player in Zimbabwe’s dysfunctional political scene.
“In addition to courage, he appears to have the intelligence and charisma needed to inspire and lead a movement for political change. But Moyo is also a political chameleon, a master at changing his spots, and a man driven by personal ambition.
“A year ago he argued with equal apparent conviction on behalf of a regime he may have hoped to lead and now reviles, and that past makes him suspect with those in the opposition and general public that he seeks to attract to his third force,” Schultz said.
Moyo had told embassy officials that the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front was now a party in crisis – ossified in policy and beholden to one man who no longer enjoyed the confidence of either the party or the nation.
He said conditions were ripe for the rise of an independent “third force” in Zimbabwean politics. He discounted the Movement for Democratic Change’s prospects to lead, describing the party as insufficiently “nationalistic” and poorly managed.
Embassy officials suspected, however, that the third force was a stalking horse for Emmerson Mnangagwa, and that Moyo saw himself not as Mugabe’s successor but ultimately as Mnangagwa’s.
Full cable:
Viewing cable 05HARARE990, MOYO ON ZANU-PF, NEED FOR NEW LEADERSHIP
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This record is a partial extract of the original cable. The full text of the original cable is not available.
201044Z Jul 05
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H-00 TEDE-00 INR-00 IO-00 LAB-01 L-00 VCE-00
DCP-00 NRC-00 NSAE-00 OES-00 OIC-00 NIMA-00 PA-00
MCC-00 GIWI-00 PRS-00 P-00 FMPC-00 SP-00 IRM-00
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——————182182 201135Z /38
FM AMEMBASSY HARARE
TO SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 8611
INFO SOUTHERN AFRICAN DEVELOPMENT COMMUNITY
AMEMBASSY ABUJA
AMEMBASSY ACCRA
AMEMBASSY ADDIS ABABA
AMEMBASSY DAKAR
AMEMBASSY KAMPALA
AMEMBASSY NAIROBI
AMEMBASSY PARIS
AMEMBASSY ROME
NSC WASHDC
USEU BRUSSELS
USMISSION USUN NEW YORK
C O N F I D E N T I A L HARARE 000990
SIPDIS
AF/S FOR B. NEULING
NSC FOR SENIOR AFRICA DIRECTOR C. COURVILLE
E.O. 12958: DECL: 12/31/2010
SUBJECT: MOYO ON ZANU-PF, NEED FOR NEW LEADERSHIP
REF: HARARE 982
Classified By: Ambassador Charge d’Affaires Eric T. Schultz under Secti
on 1.4 b/d
——-
Summary
——-
¶1. (C) In a July 5 exchange with visiting Congressional
senior staff Greg Simpkins and Pearl Alice Marsh, Jonathan
Moyo cast ZANU-PF as a party in crisis – ossified in policy
and beholden to one man who no longer enjoyed the confidence
of either the party or the nation. He said conditions were
ripe for the rise of an independent “third force” in
Zimbabwean politics. The key to a healthier politic dynamic
was Mugabe’s removal from the scene, he underscored; the fate
of constitutional amendments under consideration could be
critical in that regard. Two days after his meeting with the
staffdel, Moyo publicly called for Mugabe’s resignation and a
presidential election. End summary.
—————–
ZANU-PF in Crisis
—————–
¶2. (C) Moyo told the staffdel in his home that President
Mugabe was “on his way out”; his health was declining and his
party and the country wanted him to step down. Zimbabwe’s
central problem, he maintained, was that the ruling party had
no effective succession meQanism to see him to the door.
¶3. (C) Moyo then launched into a historical exposition to
explain the party’s current state of paralysis. ZANU-PF had
begun to deal with its predicament in the run-up to the 2000
Party Congress when, shaken by the rise of an effective
opposition, a younger generation of party leaders (e.g.,
Simba Makoni, Joseph Made) had agitated for internal reform.
Unable to resolve key issues, the party had deferred reform
issues for the 2004 Congress.
¶4. (C) According to Moyo, during the run-up to the 2004
Congress a small clique under Mugabe (the Mujuru/Zezuru
faction) effectively changed the party’s constitution to
forestall reform and to perpetuate the clique’s primacy in
the party without following constitutional procedures.
Certain aspects, such as gender reservations “were fine” in
theory, Moyo said, but when taken in conjunction with other
measures such as the elimination of secret ballots, evinced a
clearly sinister objective. The Zezuru clique’s extra-legal
putsch provoked a strong counter-effort (the “Tsholotsho”
movement), which was suppressed out of fear of a
Karanga-Ndebele-Manyika alliance.
¶5. (C) Moyo maintained that the unresolved tensions of the
2000 and 2004 ZANU-PF party congresses remained a central
factor in Zimbabwean politics. Within the GOZ, it manifested
itself in the deference of all to the President, an absence
of meaningful debate, and institutional paralysis. This made
everybody beholden to State House and impelled rent-seeking
behavior at the expense of any national interest.
————-
“Third Force”
————-
¶6. (C) The resulting frustration within the party and
dissatisfaction among the public, he continued, opened the
door for a “third force”. Moyo discounted the MDC’s
prospects to lead, describing the party as insufficiently
“nationalistic” and poorly managed. He said the odds for the
emergence of an independent party had risen from 50 percent
before the March elections to 75 percent now. Pearson
Mbalekwa’s resignation from the party was a
test case” for the independent-minded and “needed to be
nurtured.”
———————
Constitutional Agenda
———————
¶7. (C) Moyo asserted that ZANU-PF’s constitutional plans
were critical to the clique’s quest to remain on top. First,
it wanted to consolidate presidential and parliamentary
elections as an excuse to defer the next national contest
until 2010, giving them time to reverse their unpopularity.
The creation of a senate and streamlining of land reform
would expand patronage opportunities. Most importantly,
presidential succession provisions would be amended to
require a vice-president to complete an unfinished
presidential term instead of convoking a national election
within 90 days of a president’s resignation or incapacity.
This would allow Joyce Mujuru to run for election in 2010 as
an incumbent president. Moyo concluded that if ZANU-PF
managed to engineer a succession on its own terms, the
struggle to restore democracy would be significantly
prolonged.
————-
Restore Order
————-
¶8. (C) The staffdel told Moyo that they originally had
planned to come to Zimbabwe to explore prospects for improved
relations in the wake of Zimbabwe’s relatively peaceful
election but that Operation Restore Order had set back such
prospects considerably. Moyo responded that Restore Order
represented some of the regime’s worst tendencies but also
specifically evidenced the ruling clique’s self-interested
hand as well.
¶9. (C ) Moyo said he believed the motivation behind Restore
Order was the ruling clique’s imperative to keep the country
off balance and to keep any internal elements of ZANU-PF from
getting sufficiently settled to get purchase on succession
objectives. Indeed, it remained in the narrow clique’s
interest to keep the country lurching from crisis to crisis,
he argued. Moyo totally dismissed reports that Security
Minister Mutasa had master-minded the campaign. Instead, he
alleged that Vice President Mujuru had been instrumental in
the decision to implement Restore Order. Mugabe himself had
been opposed but could not oppose it once it got underway.
¶10. (C) Moyo said that the ruling party had miscalculated
the costs of Restore Order, both political and economic. He
said Zimbabweans had been “shocked” at the extent to which
the GOZ had gone after constituencies on which it
historically had relied. Many ZANU-PF members, especially
party MPs, were made exceedingly uncomfortable by Restore
Order. The ruling party would pay a price the next time the
electorate went to the polls for its “disastrous”
miscalculation.
——————————————— ———–
Post Script: Moyo Publicly Calls for Mugabe to Step Down
——————————————— ———–
¶11. (SBU) On July 7 Moyo appeared at a Crisis
Coalition-organized public panel on Operation Restore Order
that included MDC Secretary for Economic Affairs Tendai Biti,
ZCTU Secretary General and Crisis Coalition Chairman
Wellington Chibebe, and fervently anti-GOZ University of
Zimbabwe Political Science Professor John Makumbe. Moyo
commanded by far the greatest applause at the well-attended
event, especially when he called for Mugabe to step down and
yield leadership to younger more vigorous elements. His
thirty-minute speech went to lengths to distinguish ZANU-PF’s
traditional behavior (in which Moyo played a central role)
from Restore Order, which Moyo cast as a “betrayal of the
party’s nationalist orientation” and a “war on the people.”
¶12. (SBU) Moyo cast the ruling party as “an ideological
shell”, led by a man courageous in his youth but destructive
in his dotage. He said Mugabe’s “bombast was entertaining”
but only hurt the country’s national interest. He urged the
president to preserve his legacy by resigning immediately,
thus opening the way for a presidential election within 90
days in accordance with the existing constitution. He urged
the audience to demand a presidential election before it was
scheduled in 2008, and not to accept any proposal to have it
postponed.
——-
Comment
——-
¶13. (C) Moyo,s courage in publicly taking on the regime at
a time when few others seem inclined to do so makes him a
potentially pivotal player in Zimbabwe’s dysfunctional
political scene. In addition to courage, he appears to have
the intelligence and charisma needed to inspire and lead a
movement for political change. But Moyo is also a political
chameleon, a master at changing his spots, and a man driven
by personal ambition. A year ago he argued with equal
apparent conviction on behalf of a regime he may have hoped
to lead and now reviles, and that past makes him suspect with
those in the opposition and general public that he seeks to
attract to his third force. Moyo is also from the minority
Ndebele and, while he may talk a good game with respect to
transcending ethnicity, he probably knows it might be a
bridge too far for an Ndebele to be president in the current
climate. We suspect that like Pearson Mbalekwa (Ref A), Moyo
views the third force as a stalking horse for Emmerson
Mnangagwa, and that Moyo sees himself not as Mugabe,s
successor but ultimately as Mnangagwa,s.
SCHULTZ
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(47 VIEWS)
