Zimbabweans have been vexed with one major question for almost two decades: How to get President Robert Mugabe to step down.
Recent calls by the opposition and civil society for the 92-year-old to step down have been met with challenges from the ruling party that Mugabe is constitutionally entitled to complete his term which ends in 2018.
But, the party has already endorsed him as its next presidential election candidate. How then, can the party stop Mugabe, who will be 94 then, from contesting the next election?
Former Masvingo Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front supremo Eddison Zvobgo thought he had a solution just before the 2002 presidential election.
Zvobgo said that the only way to get Mugabe to step down before the election would be for a series of “respectable” and influential people in the party to begin speaking out against Mugabe’s candidacy.
He said that the first person to castigate Mugabe would face a strong rebuke, but once a second and third person joined the chorus, it would be difficult for Mugabe to drown out the resulting noise, and he would be forced to relinquish his candidacy for president.
He was prepared to be one of the first people to speak out against Mugabe but it appears he lacked support because Mugabe’s hatchet man, Jonathan Moyo, with the support of then party Information Secretary, Nathan Shamuyarira, publicly stated that Mugabe had already been endorsed as the party candidate for 2002.
Some people were expecting Mugabe to give an indication of when he will retire at yesterday burial of Cephas Msipa, but he did not.
He is, therefore, still the party candidate for the next elections despite his advanced age.
Below are the Wikileaks cables that mention Moyo’s name:
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