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Monday, February 21, 2005 - Web posted at 8:41:39 GMT Mugabe sacks chief info tsar Moyo HARARE - Zimbabwe's Information Minister Jonathan Moyo has been sacked following his decision to register as an independent candidate in next month's crunch parliamentary elections, state media reported at the weekend. |
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President Robert Mugabe announced on Saturday that Moyo has been fired from both the government and the ruling Zanu-PF. He said Moyo had broken party rules by flagging himself as an independent. "By that action professor Moyo automatically ceases to be a member of Zanu-PF, the party which sponsored him into government in the first place," Mugabe was quoted as saying by state television. "Accordingly as a direct consequence of that step which he took yesterday, professor Moyo also ceases to be both a member of parliament and cabinet minister, with all the benefits associated with those responsibilities standing withdrawn with immediate effect," Mugabe said. Moyo, who was barred by the Zanu-PF from running as its candidate after he took part in a secret meeting over Mugabe's succession row, registered on Friday to join the race as an independent candidate. Moyo said his action was not "by any stretch of the imagination, a statement of defiance of anyone or anything, but fundamentally a principled expression of respect of the clear and present wishes of the people of Tsholotsho (constituency)". "President Mugabe has repeatedly said the people have the right to choose their representatives and not have such representatives imposed on the people under what pretext," he was quoted as saying by state daily The Herald. The former university lecturer who made a dramatic about-face from fierce critic to chief propagandist of Mugabe, rose rapidly through the party ranks to become one of the president's closest advisers and spin doctor. Critics labelled him 'Mugabe's Goebbels', referring to the Nazi propagandist, but Moyo yesterday defended his record as information minister and one of Mugabe's closest advisers at a time when the country plunged into international isolation. "I am sure history and posterity will record the fact that my service to the president started at a time when the presidency, the ruling party and our nation were individually and collectively facing an unprecedented onslaught from a number of hostile foreign interests and powers," he said. Moyo made his mark as the architect of the draconian Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act passed into law in 2002, barring foreign journalists from working in Zimbabwe for long periods and tightening controls on domestic media. He was sidelined after being accused of attending an unsanctioned secret succession meeting last year seen as a plot against the Zanu-PF's top leadership. State media said party leaders had decided to set aside the Tsholotsho seat for female candidates in a bid "to punish those who organised" the secret meeting last November. The unauthorised meeting was allegedly aimed at pushing a rival candidate to Mugabe's choice for the post of vice president, seen as a stepping stone to the country's top job after Mugabe retires in 2008. The job was eventually given to Joyce Mujuru, a cabinet minister and wife of a former army commander. Moyo yesterday said he was the victim of "politics of patronage". His departure from Zanu-PF marked one of the first serious political casualties amid a succession wrangle which is seen favouring the opposition Movement for Democratic Change in the March 31 vote. Political analysts say the March elections are almost certain to return Mugabe to power. - Nampa-AFP-Reuters |
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