Moyo in racism storm

Southern Eye

May 15 2015

INFORMATION minister Jonathan Moyo yesterday resorted to mudslinging after he was asked about vote-buying ahead of by-elections in Tsholotsho North.

The Zimbabwe National Water Authority has raised eyebrows by drilling 20 boreholes in Tsholotsho North on the eve of the June 10 polls.

Moyo has been showcasing the boreholes on social media this week provoking questions from his followers, but the minister has been taking no prisoners in his responses.

Former Education minister David Coltart bore the brunt of Moyo’s vitriolic attack after he dared question the government’s record in the 35 years since independence.

Coltart said he was pleased that boreholes were being drilled in Tsholotsho North, but pointed out that the constituency, coveted by Moyo, had in the past been neglected by the government.

“Whilst pleased the people of Tsholotsho are going to get 20 boreholes in anticipation of Jonathan Moyo’s campaign, I question why they were not dug before,” he said on micro-blogging site, Twitter.

Coltart said what Moyo was doing, drilling boreholes ahead of an election, was akin to abuse of office and vote-buying.

“Fact of the matter is that Zanu PF has brutalised and neglected people of Tsholotsho for 35 years and now seeks to win them over with 20 boreholes,” he said.

“We should be asking why it is that the road to Tsholotsho is still so poor, why there are so few ‘A’ Level schools there, why results are so bad.

“In the context of gross underdevelopment and shocking human rights abuse in Tsholotsho in the last 35 years, the promise of 20 boreholes is just a sop.”

But Moyo would have none of it, describing him as a Rhodie and a “bloody racist” who had not accepted “even one year of black rule”.

The Information minister said he did not hate Coltart, but “for an ex-BSAP (British South Africa Police) to say Zimbabwe has had 35 years of misrule is to racially insult black Zimbabweans”.

Moyo received both support and criticism in equal measure, with some asking why a question of governance had been construed to refer to racism.

“It’s how some of these views are expressed,” he shot back.

“To say Zimbabwe has had 35 years of misrule is unacceptable.

“Come on, 35 years of misrule is a definite insult to our whole Independence and I for one won’t accept that rubbish, the claim of 35 years of misrule in Zimbabwe is not a fact, but an opinion which in his case is racist.”

Coltart then accused Moyo, his former Cabinet colleague, of resorting to gutter tactics to avoid the question of misrule.

He said he had also represented a number of nationalists in court, but Moyo cheekily said Coltart had made a lot of money “(mis)representing” them.

There’s no love lost between the two, who almost on a daily basis engage in heated arguments on Twitter.