Once one of Mugabe’s strongest critics, Moyo joined Mugabe’s government in 2000 after leaving his lucrative post at University of Witwatersrand in South Africa to join the constitution commission.
Moyo was appointed Information Minister and became one of the most powerful people in Mugabe’s government. No one dared cross his path including Mugabe’s two deputies at the time.
But Moyo was fired from ZANU-PF in 2005 when he was implicated in the so-called Tsholotsho Declaration that sought to oppose the elevation of Joice Mujuru to vice-president of the party preferring Emerson Mnangagwa instead.
He also refused to stand down as candidate for the Tsholotsho seat which the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front said should be reserved for a woman candidate.
Moyo won the seat as an independent and won it again as an independent in the 2008 elections.
But Moyo’s biggest victory was his re-admission to ZANU-PF in 2009, and to the politburo, a feat powerful ZANU-PF officials like Edgar Tekere, who was at one time Mugabe’s number two, failed to achieve.
Only three people could have lobbied for Moyo to be readmitted: Mugabe himself, Joice Mujuru or Emmerson Mnangagwa.
It was obviously not Mujuru because he would have gone down with her when he was expelled from the party.
A new book, How Mugabe won, published in London last month, claims it was Mnangagwa who helped bring him back, yet Jonathan Moyo seems to have made Mnangagwa his number one enemy.
But then, Mugabe admitted that Moyo played a key role in his 2013 victory, which makes him Mugabe’s favourite.
War veterans claim he is trying to destroy the party from within, which makes him their arch-enemy?
Jonathan Moyo might now be a nuisance to the party, but can it afford to get rid of him now?
Whispers say one of the reasons why Moyo was re-admitted to ZANU-PF in 2009 was that he had inside knowledge about the Movement for Democratic Change campaign in 2008 which saw the opposition party beating ZANU-PF both in parliament and in the first round of the presidential polls.
It is believed that he used that to beat the MDC-T hands down in 2013.
If he were fired from ZANU-PF is he not likely to use his inside knowledge about how ZANU-PF won in 2013 to help the MDC-T win next year?
Mugabe wants to go out in style and has even accommodated national commissar Saviour Kasukuwere despite overwhelming calls for him to go because he does not want to rock the boat ahead of next year’s elections.
Can he let Jonathan Moyo go?
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