Moyo to run as independent
2005-02-18 21:26
Special Report
A classical music presenter for the BBC has been arrested and is in custody in Zimbabwe.
Bulawayo - Zimbabwe's information minister Jonathan Moyo will contest next month's parliamentary elections as an independent after the ruling party barred him from running as its candidate.
Moyo's name was among those announced as confirmed to take part in the March 31 polls by election officer Willard Sayenda at the closure of the nomination process on Friday.
Other names included Heather Bennett, the wife of a jailed opposition legislator who will join the race in her husband's place.
Moyo, who was sidelined by the ruling Zimbabwe African National African National Union-Patriotic Front (Zanu PF) party on allegations of plotting against the party's top leadership, is no longer a member of Zanu-PF because he has decided to stand alone, according to a party chief.
"All those who have decided to stand as independent candidates have now been deemed to have expelled themselves from the party and can no longer be Zanu-PF members," said Didymus Mutasa, Zanu-PF secretary for administration.
The announcement of candidates ended weeks of speculation on Moyo's political future after he was dropped last December from the Zanu-PF's policy and supreme decision making organs.
He was sidelined by the ruling party after being accused of attending an unsanctioned secret succession meeting last year seen as a plot against the Zanu-PF's top leadership.
The state media said the party leadership had decided to set aside the western Zimbabwe rural Tsholotsho seat for female candidates in a bid "to punish those who organised" the secret meeting held in November last year.
The unauthorised meeting was allegedly aimed at pushing a rival candidate to President Robert Mugabe's choice for the post of vice president, which is 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.
A former university lecturer who made a dramatic about-face from fierce critic to chief propagandist of Mugabe, Moyo rose rapidly in party ranks to become one of the president's closest advisers.
He drafted restrictive media laws in the form of the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act which was adopted in 2002, barring foreign journalists from working in Zimbabwe and tightening controls on domestic media.
The nomination court also confirmed Heather Bennett, wife of opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) legislator Roy Bennett, as one of the candidates for the rural eastern Chimanimani constituency.
She decided to stand after the court rejected papers filed on behalf of her jailed husband.
Her husband is serving a one-year jail term imposed by the Zanu PF-dominated parliament, which convicted him for shoving to the ground Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa during debate in parliament.
Several were disqualified after they failed to raise a Z$2m (about R2 000) deposit to accompany their applications.
- AFP