via Moyo faces party disciplinary action – NewsDay Zimbabwe September 3, 2015
ZANU PF politburo member and Higher and Tertiary Education minister Jonathan Moyo faces disciplinary action for his continued use of social media platforms to attack fellow party members in defiance of a directive by President Robert Mugabe barring members from doing so.
XOLISANI NCUBE/RICHARD CHDZA
Moyo has of late been very active on Twitter,rebuking senior party members, and at times breaking diplomatic etiquette by attacking high ranking officials from other countries. His most high profile Twitter victim has been Vice-President Emmerson Mnangagwa.
He rebuked Mnangagwa over his utterances in an interview with London-based NewAfrican magazine last week, where he insinuated that Zimbabwe will miss Mugabe.
Moyo interpreted the statement as akin to writing Mugabe’s obituary,“while was still alive”.
Zanu PF spokesperson, Simon Khaya Moyo yesterday said such actions were wrong and subject to disciplinary measures.
“Once the President has said stop it, he has said so… there is no need for anyone to defy that,” Khaya Moyo said.
“As a party, we have structures that one can use whenever they have complaints against anyone.
“We have the structures at every level of the party and that is what the President said.
“So if someone defies it, the case can be taken to the disciplinary committee who then can decide on it.”
This comes amid reports that some party hawks were already baying for the former Information minister’s head over his alleged continued abuse of social media platforms.
“Although the VP [Mnangagwa] might be wrong, culturally, to talk about a post Mugabe era, Comrade Moyo is wrong to rebuke the VP on twitter,” a Zanu PF insider said yesterday.
“Why should he use Twitter to undermine what the VP said?
“Even if he does not agree with what he said he should use the politburo or even approach him to raise his concerns as opposed to be posting it on Twitter.”
Mugabe in his address to the Zanu PF Central Committee recently ordered his comrades to stay off social media.
Moyo is reportedly linked to a group within Zanu PF calling itself Generation 40.
“If he can attack the VP like what he did, what can stop him from attacking the President in public? This must be stopped,” another party insider said.
In the interview, Mnangagwa said Mugabe was an outstanding leader, who will be missed, but Moyo opined
that the statements were “rather premature to say”.
Told by a social media user that Mnangagwa was “accepting the inevitable”, Moyo was adamant, saying, “the inevitable is the truth of everyone and so there is no telling who is going to die before who”.
In the past Moyo, a prolific user of Twitter, has taken to social media to express concern over the haranguing of Zanu PF political commissar, Saviour Kasukuwere in Parliament by party legislator, Justice Mayor Wadyajena.
Yesterday, Moyo caused a diplomatic row after he made disparaging comments about South African Port
City, Durban’s winning bid for the 2022 Commonwealth games.
Durban was given the right to organise the games in which mainly former British colonies take part, and Moyo used his social media Twitter page to comment on the issue.
Moyo was not available to elaborate on his latest rants, as his phone went unanswered.
Zimbabwe walked out of the Commonwealth in 2003 over its frosty relations with former coloniser, Britain.
Political commentator Ibbo Mandaza said Moyo’s seemingly open disregard for Mugabe’s directive not to
use social media for spinning “betrays his relationship with the President”.
“It seems to me that Moyo has always had latitude that others in Zanu PF and government do not have in his relations with the President, both as a politician and technocrat,” he said.
“Some people, within and without government, would have wanted to see Moyo’s back, but he is still there.
“It shows he has a special relationship with Mugabe that only the two of them understand.”
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