Ex-ZBC chief wins Zanu PF primary

Former head of Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC) forced to quit his job ahead of a government inquiry into allegations of homosexuality, has won a Zanu PF primary, sending him into a general election for a Mberengwa South National Assembly seat.

Alum Mpofu, former chief executive of the ZBC, who resigned in 2002 after he was accused of being caught in a homosexual act in a Harare night club, won the party’s nomination for the Mberengwa South National Assembly seat with 2 899 votes, well ahead of rival candidate who polled 2 044 votes, according to the voting tallies released by Zanu PF political commissar Englebert Rugeje.

The resignation of Mpofu, the architect of the ruling party’s propaganda campaign by the State broadcaster ahead of the heavily disputed 2002 presidential elections, headed off a damaging inquiry ordered by the government into an incident at Tiperary Nightclub in Harare, then owned by a ruling party lawmaker, Pearson Mbalekwa.

Former Information minister Jonathan Moyo recruited Mpofu, then working at the SABC, to head changes at the ZBC that streamlined its role as a government mouthpiece. Daily News