Jonathan Moyo, who has become a staunch supporter of Nelson Chamisa, but merely to get at President Emmerson Mnangagwa, argues that it is easy to beat Mnangagwa, who he is says is unelectable, because he was clobbered twice, in 2000 and in 2005 by then little known Blessing Chebundo of the Movement for Democratic Change.
I am not saying Chamisa cannot beat Mnangagwa- which I doubt- but I am saying this should not be based on the fact that because he was beaten by Chebundo he can be beaten by Chamisa so let’s #KwekweHim.
This is a very shallow argument purely based on conjecture because even if you had pitted Robert Mugabe, Jonathan Moyo’s favourite, against Chebundo, the old man would have been beaten.
People were not voting for the person but for the party, but even more precisely they were voting against anything or anyone to do with the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front.
Jonathan Moyo himself is an example.
When he was kicked out of ZANU-PF in 2005, he won the Tsholotsho seat not once but twice, as an independent. When he contested the same seat, for the third time but as a ZANU-PF candidate, he was clobbered.
It was the same Jonathan Moyo who had brought a lot of development to Tsholotsho as a minister and as an independent candidate and could have brought even more development as a government minister but the people just told him that they had nothing to do with ZANU-PF.
Sikhanyiso Ndlovu, one of the best representatives Mpopoma ever had was told to quit ZANU-PF if he wanted the people to vote for him in 2000 when the MDC contested its first elections. When he refused, he was clobbered.
In fact, the mood at the time was aptly summed up by a woman in Nkayi: “Given a choice between a donkey and a ZANU-PF candidate, people would vote for the donkey”, she said.
This is also amply demonstrated by the fact that when Mnangagwa moved to a rural constituency, he won, not once but twice, and when he was appointed Vice-President, his wife won that seat in a by-election.
#KwekweHim, sounds catchy but as Mnangagwa himself often says “masamba asiyana”.
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