Moyo and Zhuwao apologise to Zanu-PF, register willingness to rejoin

Exiled former cabinet ministers Jonathan Moyo and Patrick Zhuwao have seemingly registered their willingness to re-join Zanu-PF by openly apologising to the ruling party for supporting President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s rival Nelson Chamisa.

In an open letter to their Zanu-PF comrades, Moyo and late former President Robert Mugabe’s nephew maintained that Mnangagwa assumed power in 2017, through a military coup that “targeted us and other comrades linked with the so-called G40″.

In November 2017, Mnangagwa connived with military generals and the central intelligence organisation to grab power from Mugabe.

Moyo, who was Mugabe’s loyalist, fled the country to seek refuge in Kenya. Zhuwao and other Zanu-PF comrades who include Walter Mzembi and Saviour Kasukuwere are believed to be in South Africa.

The latest move by Zhuwao and Moyo is sensationally showing that they still have interests in Zanu-PF. They were ousted by Zanu-PF and before asking to rejoin it, they are already apologising for supporting another political party.

“Between 2018 and 2020 – on the back of the 15 November 2017 military coup that ousted President Mugabe and his government from power and violently targeted us and other comrades linked with the s-called G40 – we associated ourselves and used the hashtag ‘Zanu PF Must Go (#ZanuPFMustGo), in our public messaging and communication,” wrote the duo.

“Whereas we stopped using the hashtag and disassociated ourselves from it quite some time back, it is our considered judgments that we owe you a long overdue apology for having used the hashtag and for having associated ourselves with it in the first place.

“Accordingly and on this day 15 November 2022, we hereby apologise to all of you Comrades most sincerely and with profound regret for our wrong use of – and ill-advised association with – the hashtag ‘Zanu PG Must Go’ (#ZanuPFMustGo).”

The exiled pair said that the coup that forced them to flee the country in 2017 did not “justify our use of and association with the hashtag ‘Zanu PF Must Go’(#ZanuPFMustGo)”.

They admitted that they supported Chamisa in 2018 but without the intention of joining Zanu-PF.

“While it is common cause that the protracted public differences we had with other leaders in the party and the government became irreconcilable to the point where military force was used to target us with our families, and to overthrow the late former President Robert Mugabe and his government; and whereas that use of military force was unconstitutional and set a dangerous governance precedence in the country and elsewhere across the continent, we have come to the full realization and conclusion that those unfortunate developments and their tormenting consequences on us did not – and do not – justify our use of and association with the hashtag ‘Zanu PF Must Go’(#ZanuPFMustGo); which clearly targeted not those who have tormented us but also all of you, as members of Zanu PF.

“For whatever it is worth, we supported Nelson Chamisa in the 2018 and well after that but we did not at any time in that process ever seek to join his then MDC-A or his new CCC,” the pair said.

“As President Mugabe best put it ahead of the 2018 harmonised general election, ‘there was no one else to support’ given the political dynamics at play at the time.

“We hoped in vain that Chamisa would break barriers and forge a new platform on which a cross section of citizens straddling the political divide could converge, based on Zimbabwe’s founding values and principles stipulated in section 3 of Zimbabwe’s constitution.”

Zanu-PF director of information Tafadzwa Mugwadi applauded the two for taking the initial step to rejoin the party.

“This is the way Professor Jonathan Moyo and Patrick Zhuwao. The President and entire leadership of the Party have always said ‘let bygones be bygones’.

“This is a good start. I have always maintained even as we argue brutally then, that you don’t fit in an opposition to Zanu-PF. Musangano ihomwe,” he said.

Reacting to the latest developments investigative journalist Hopewell Chin’ono tweeted;

“ZANUPF has welcomed back Jonathan Moyo and Patrick Zhuwao. ZANUPF spokesman Chris Mutsvangwa said Moyo’s apology letter was an endorsement of Mnangagwa’s rule and vision.

“This is the same vision that Moyo used to bash daily on Twitter before he flipped and started attacking CCC,” Chin’ono wrote.

In August 2021, Moyo declared he would never rejoin Zanu-PF.

“It would be easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for me to go back to Zanu-PF, let alone to support Emmerson Mnangagwa. Red lines were crossed in November 2017. I cannot go back to Zanu-PF and still love my wife and kids. Zanu-PF will never be everyone’s party, again,” he said.