MOSES MATENGA
Despite engaging in nasty and emotional outbursts against the governing Zanu PF following their ouster in 2017, former politburo members Jonathan Moyo and Patrick Zhuwao have profusely apologised for their actions with the party saying they are now back in the fold.
Moyo and Zhuwao were kingpins in the now deflated G40 faction that had coalesced around the late former President Robert Mugabe and his wife Grace while elbowing out the senior party officials through several purges.
Former Zanu PF political commissar Saviour Kasukuwere is yet to apologise together with ex-Tourism minister Walter Mzembi.
Zanu PF yesterday said they are free to come back to the party and follow Moyo and Zhuwao.
Zanu PF national spokesperson Christopher Mutsvangwa said the party was happy to welcome back the two.
“We are happy that Jonathan Moyo and Patrick Zhuwao have come back to the party and have found each other again. We do hope that this will also be followed by others,” Mutsvangwa said.
“There was quite some euphoria ahead of the congress that there would be chaos but people overlook that the leadership has a bond of comradeship and that bond triumphed.”
“I hope the likes of Kasukuwere take a cue, he used to be close to the two and he is still out in the cold and we hope his illusion of holding power outside Zanu PF is scattered by what has happened now and comes back.”
Observers said the apology issued jointly by Moyo and Zhuwao will set tone for the possible return of all who are in self-imposed exile.
In the lengthy apology, the duo said it was regrettable that they used the “Zanu PF must go” hashtag and supported opposition then MDC Alliance leader Nelson Chamisa in the 2018 harmonised elections.
“Whereas we stopped using the hashtag and dissociated 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,” the former Cabinet Ministers said.
The apology comes exactly four years after the military intervention that led to the ouster of Mugabe and those that surrounded him who were referred to by the army as “criminals around the President.”
“Accordingly, and on this day November 15, 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 two said their association with the “Zanu PF must go” push was forced by violence that saw them risking lives to escape to neighbouring countries for their safety.
