Moyo accuses Mugabe of intimidation

Moyo accuses Mugabe of intimidation

MOYO gives the victory sign to supporters as his campaign party swept through Tsholotsho on Friday 11 March

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By Stella Mapenzauswa

A CONTROVERSIAL former minister sacked by President Robert Mugabe after opting to stand as an independent in this month's general election has accused the ruling party of using threats to garner votes.

Former information minister Jonathan Moyo has become the most visible symbol of cracks within Mugabe's Zanu PF -- which have taken on ethnic overtones. Analysts say these cracks leave the party weaker against the main opposition Movement for Democratic Change at the March 31 poll.

Moyo said late on Friday Zanu PF officials were intimidating people in his rural constituency of Tsholotsho by suggesting that failing to vote for the party could evoke a reprisal similar to a 1980s government crackdown that rights groups say left 20,000 civilians dead.

That crackdown in the minority Ndebele-speaking Matabeleland region, which includes Tsholotsho, fuelled ethnic tensions with Mugabe's majority Shona group which only ended with a 1987 pact which saw the two regions' political parties merge into ZANU-PF.

"What is of concern is what is being said by some of the campaign groups representing ZANU-PF. (They) have been threatening the people, that ... if you don't vote for the party you will not be given drought relief," Moyo told reporters during a campaign tour in drought-prone Tsholotsho, 110 km (70 miles) northeast of Bulawayo.

"(The officials are saying) if you don't vote for the party you may even provoke ... Gukurahundi days," Moyo added in reference to the 1980s crackdown.

ZANU-PF officials were not immediately available for comment.

Moyo, who as information minister spearheaded ZANU-PF's propaganda campaign in a diplomatic war of words with the West, lost favour with Mugabe after convening a secret meeting the party says plotted to push a favoured candidate to the post of ZANU-PF and government co-vice president.

The post, which eventually went to Joyce Mujuru, is seen as a step to succeeding Mugabe, 81, who is widely expected to retire when his present term ends in 2008.

The succession furore saw Moyo lead several other rebels in registering as independents in the March 31 election, leading to their expulsion from ZANU-PF.

Analysts say the fall-out could cost ZANU-PF votes in Matabeleland, where resentment lingers over the crackdown and a perception that the government has neglected the region.

"Unity is something very good, something that we cherish, but we do not cherish it as just an idea that is there to benefit a few individuals," Moyo said on Friday.

"We cherish if it is an agenda for development, if it means by having unity we will see our roads being repaired, tarred so that our people can move ... and in the case of Tsholotsho that the perennial water problem will be addressed."

The MDC enjoyed a near-clean sweep of Matabeleland both in the last parliamentary election in 2000 and presidential elections in 2002. ZANU-PF won both amid opposition and Western charges of rigging.

Mugabe insists his party won fairly, and says his political opponents are puppets of Western powers who want to end his 25-year grip on power mainly over his controversial seizure of white-owned commercial farms for landless blacks - Reuters
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