The ruling Zanu PF party is an ugly face of the “unacceptable” in Zimbabwe and therefore must go, former cabinet minister, Professor Jonathan Moyo, has said.
Moyo, former Higher and Tertiary Education Minister in the late former president Robert Mugabe’s government skipped the country during the November 2017 military coup which toppled his boss.
Speaking during an interview on CITE’s online programme, The Breakfast Club on Tuesday, Moyo said Zanu PF, which he said is inextricably linked to the military has stolen people’s opportunity to have better lives through the implementation of the 2013 new constitution.
“When we say Zanu PF must go, we don’t mean that Zanu PF individuals must disappear from the face of the earth, no,” said Moyo.
“Zanu PF must go means the system, the values that have brought us to this unacceptable situation, even after we came up with a new constitution. Those values which unfortunately are found in just any other organisation in Zimbabwe be it a political organisation, church or NGO, those values must go. We need to start afresh. It is difficult to imagine those values going when an organisation called Zanu PF remains.”
He said some Zanu PF members had hoped to make the party to implement the Constitution but all that was thwarted by the military and what he called gukurahundists, the alleged proponents of the Gukurahundi atrocities.
He said it was regrettable that a coup was staged against provisions of the country’s constitution, with the military openly declaring, it wanted to save Zanu PF.
“For that reason, this thing which was the reason for the military to use force to get into power must go,” said Moyo.
“It is impossible to turn the page and have the new values that are in the constitution as long as something called Zanu PF is alive. The organisation called Zanu PF must go because it has come to symbolize what is unacceptable. It is the ugly face of the unacceptable in Zimbabwe.”
The former minister said the country could be in a better place had the constitution been implemented.
“I think that we are missing the opportunity to benefit from something wonderful that we did as Zimbabweans, which is coming up with a new constitution in 2013,” he said.
“It may not have been the best constitution that we wanted or everyone wanted but it is a wonderful starting point for all of us. If all of us were to base our conduct, our customs, our values and principles on what we have agreed as Zimbabweans and not only through coming up with that constitution in the negotiation stages but also supporting the product in the referendum we will make a big difference.”
He added: “Otherwise if we don’t do that I am afraid Zimbabweans will continue perhaps to be the only population in Africa if not in the world whose citizens succeed very well outside the country and fail dismally inside the country. People fail where you do not have shared values and principles that treat everyone equally.”
