G40 faction has lost and Mugabe is throwing Moyo and Kasukuwere to the wolves. By N Garikai

Corruption has become rampant in Zimbabwe, in February 2016 President Mugabe admitted that $15 billion in diamond revenue was “swindled” and no one has ever been arrested; because, as a rule, the anti-corruption drag net is design to catch small fry. It the net catch the big fish, all fishing will be suspended with immediate effect until counter measure are put in place to ensure only fry is caught in future!

So when the story broken out that Professor Jonathan Moyo was being charged for defrauding his Ministry of $400 000; most people expected the case to be quietly dropped. After all Professor Moyo is not just one of the big fish in Zimbabwe politics but a ruthless operator with a dossier of dirty on most of his colleagues, they know their secrets will be out if anything should happen to him. However, this time President Mugabe has given the green light to allow the investigation to continue.  

“Moyo is a genius, but Mugabe is a bigger genius, if not the best,” commented Professor Changamire. Well, he is wrong on both counts.

Zimbabwe is in a serious economic mess; a far cry from the “Jewel of Africa”, as the late President Julius Nyerere called it, President Mugabe inherited in 1980. We used to be bread basket of the region and now we dependent on imported food-aid. We are so impoverished we cannot even afford to pay for the food although billions of dollars of diamonds are being looted every month! What kind of genius would preside over such a monumental fcuk up!

There is a lot more to Professor Moyo’s fraud case than the corruption, it is the conclusion of the factional war that has torn Zanu PF apart. The G40 faction President Mugabe and Professor Moyo were on has lost and Mugabe is jettisoning Moyo to the wolves in the hope it will be enough to save his own skin!

Grace Mugabe has forced he husband to form and back G40 faction because she would not contemplate life being anything less than first lady. And the only way for her to avoid that was for her to succeed Mugabe as president. The G40 faction was formed to stop Mnangagwa, whose faction was the only one left after the demise of the Mujuru faction, succeeding Mugabe.

Mugabe has always been a loner with a reputation of betraying friends for selfish political gain has meant he that he had no friends and therefore the G40 faction had no real support within the party except for loners and opportunists like VP Mphoko, Kasukuwere, Jonathan Moyo and Mugabe’s blundering nephew Patrick Zhuwao. The G40 team was bad but having Grace Mugabe as their presidential candidate made the team even worse!

All serious political observers dismissed G40 faction as no match the Mnangagwa faction and G40 would have fizzled out of existence a long time ago was it not for Mugabe who propped it up. But after nearly two years of trying to displace Mnangagwa, it is clear G40 will never do it.

If Professor Jonathan Moyo was a genius, then he should have realized G40 faction was no match the Mnangagwa faction and now he is paying the price for being on the losing side.

Professor Jonathan Moyo is like a child who likes to play with fire because this is not the first time he has found himself in deep political trouble. In 2004 he crossed swords with President Mugabe for masterminding the Tsholotsho Declaration, a failed palace coup attempt to replace Mugabe with Mnangagwa. He begged Mugabe for forgiveness and “cried tears”, according to Mugabe.

In 2014 President Mugabe accused Professor Jonathan Moyo of allowing the Zanu PF control Public Media to report damaging corruption stories involving party officials. He called Moyo the “devil incarnate” and “weevil destroying Zanu PF from within”; most people, including Didymus Mutasa, were convinced that Moyo’s days in power were numbered. Mutasa even offered to supply the insecticide Gamatox to kill the “weevil”.

In fact, Moyo was never punished in any way; many people the Professor must have blackmailed Mugabe! As Zanu PF’s chief strategists Moyo would no doubt know in great detail how the party rigged the 2013 elections, for example. The prospect of being exposed as a vote rigging fraudster would have stopped Mugabe dead in his tracks.

Ever since the fraud charges first came to light, Professor Moyo’s line of defense was that he was not the only leader who is corrupt and threatened to name others. It is clear the case is being orchestrated by the Mnangagwa faction and they know they have their man and he is not the only G40 member in trouble.

“Just yesterday, during a cabinet meeting, Kasukuwere wept, on his knees in front of Mugabe,” reported Professor Chingamire. “Begging him for mercy. He knows what is coming next. He faces arrest. He will soon be ordered to hand himself over to ZACC too.

“He begged Mugabe for Presidential pardon, to which the answer was that - Mugabe could not pardon him before he had been tried and convicted.”

Some people think that President is at long last acting decisively to end corruption; they are wrong. The factional war between Lacoste and G40 is drawing to an end. The end of 2014 factional war pitting Mnangagwa against Mujuru end with the latter and 150 her supporters, very senior Zanu PF members, being booted out of the party and government. G40 faction have just lost the latest factional war and the losers are being dragged through the mud and will eventually be booted out of the party.

President Mugabe knows only too well that the Mnangagwa faction will never stop fighting until the G40 faction is thoroughly defeated and disbanded. He is throwing Moyo and Kasukuwere to the wolves and hope they will be content and leave him and his wife in peace.

If the G40 faction had prevailed, Mugabe would have thrown Mnangagwa and his friends to the G40 wolves without a moment’s hesitation.

Indeed, Mugabe’s political history is littered with friends and foe he betrayed and killed with the same ruthless indifference. Whilst he has got away with his treacherous behaviour in the past; it is clear he will not do so this time. It is hard to see Professor Jonathan Moyo going down quietly and VP Emmerson Mnangagwa is not the type to forget and forgive Grace Mugabe’s “Mafirakureva” insults and abuses!