Mnangagwa spokesman dismisses Jonathan Moyo and Zhuwao’s apology to ZANU-PF- says it could even be subversive and hostile

President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s spokesman George Charamba has dismissed an open letter by former ministers Jonathan Moyo and Patrick Zhuwao in which they apologised for campaigning against the ruling Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front through the hashtag “#ZANUPFmust Go”.

Writing in his weekly column under Jamwanda, Charamba said the open letter, which was posted on 15 November, was potentially subversive and hostile because it was addressed to no one in particular and by-passed the party’s leadership and structures.

“As things stand, their missive — an open letter — has no addressee, not post office address or care-of,” Charamba said. 

“At this stage, there is little reason for being exuberantly or generously expectant about this communication, more so given who the writers are. I have already said the communication lacks a post office box number, addressed as it is to some amorphous magnitude they call ‘Zanu PF Comrades’.

“Potentially, it could be viewed as subversive, hostile even, in that it may be construed to be their attempt to reach and address ZANU-PF membership through some invisible fly-past the Party leadership.

“An attempt to by-pass, sideswipe and relegate the leadership and its structures, in order to supplant that leadership and ensconce themselves as the new men! The open letter would be some dipstick, some probing challenge, to test and gauge their own appeal for a superseding challenge to the leadership newly elected in the just-ended Congress.”

Charamba said Moyo and Zhuwao could have used this approach, “first, that the two are flying the kite, hoping to draw fire from which to determine positions, and gauge ZANU-PF reaction; and, second, that they are not anxious for progression any time soon, beyond just registering the recovery and turnaround to a favourable disposition and sentiment”.

Charamba also asked whether the letter was representative of the remnant members of the G-40 faction of ZANU-PF to which Moyo and Zhuwao and those close to the former First Lady Grace Mugabe belonged.

“I doubt or maybe, depending on what motive you ascribe its writing. Politics involves lets of dissembling, which is why there always is a discrepancy between appearance and reality, words and meaning,” he said.

“Before anyone asked him, Walter Mzembi made a scornful tweet: something like a tired and collapsed ox never wakes up to pull the plough, however hard you beat or twist its tail. It was a true trope from a villager, upon whom the lustre of urbanity is but a faint gloss.

“Formally asked by The Herald, he cryptically replayed the same rustic imagery: every cow moos for itself! Of course he did not remember there are ways to make a cow moo, including breaking it from the rest of the herd. Or penning its calf!

“Mzembi is too deeply sucked into Chamisa’s Triple C to recant or step back. My sense is he will throw his lot with Chamisa, genuinely, to then sink with him, irretrievably. And Tyson waBantu? Two possibilities, both of which will brew failure for him in 2023. He may be behind Prof Moyo and Zhuwao’s dissembling moves, if these two are not genuine, in which case he will sink with them.

“Or he may break ranks with the duo, to go it alone with his self-arsonist friend, Slybeth Msengezi and renegades from erstwhile Zanu PF Youth League, who hurriedly created a poor clone of Malema’s EFF, calling it Third Way. They will sink.”

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