Leaders battle as Zimbabwe vote nears

TSHOLOTSHO, Zimbabwe — As the government's chief spin doctor, Jonathan Moyo labeled opposition figures traitors. He composed songs praising the ruling party.

And, after shutting down most independent newspapers, he so dominated Zimbabwe's compliant state-owned press that some said his voice overwhelmed even that of his boss, President Robert Mugabe.

But in a reversal of fortune that has become a national political soap opera leading up to Thursday's national elections, Mugabe turned on Moyo, firing his information minister and accusing him last week of plotting a coup.

Moyo, in turn, has denounced Mugabe and his closest advisers in a series of scathing public comments that offer insights into one of Africa's most secretive and repressive ruling parties.

Moyo refused to comment Friday on the accusations of coup-plotting, but he described the party he served for five years as aging, undemocratic, riven by internal disputes, filled with "deadwood" and likely to fall in the next several years.

"We are a young, dynamic society led by an old, stagnant clique," said Moyo, 48, who is running for parliament as an independent candidate from his dusty, remote home town of Tsholotsho.

Few predict that Zimbabwe's main opposition group, the Movement for Democratic Change, will emerge with a majority of the 120 seats being contested. Political analysts, human-rights groups and opposition members have all predicted widespread manipulation of voter rolls and other forms of rigging to allow Mugabe's party to maintain power.

But other opponents echo Moyo's claim that Mugabe's party, the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front, is at one of its weakest points since it took power after Zimbabwe won independence from Britain in 1980.

Moyo said Mugabe's party could lose even with vote-rigging because of its decreasing popularity in rural areas and the growing organizational sophistication of the opposition. He said Mugabe's stated goal of winning two-thirds of the contested seats was virtually unreachable because the party's message had grown vague and muddled.

"It's quite possible (Mugabe's) ZANU-PF could lose these elections," he said. "The Democratic experience is working in Zimbabwe. ... The people in Zimbabwe are understanding what democracy means. Zimbabwe will be transformed democratically. I have no doubt about that."

Yet despite Moyo's effort to return to power through Thursday's balloting, his credentials as a supporter of democracy have repeatedly been questioned by both ruling-party figures and members of the opposition.

During his tenure as information minister, human-rights groups rated Zimbabwe's government as one of the most hostile in the world to press freedoms.

Moyo banned foreign correspondents from reporting without official approval and crafted a law that imposed a two-year prison sentence on any journalist who slipped into the country.

Mugabe suggested that Moyo had plotted a coup in his final days as information minister, meeting with senior military commanders and doing "terrible things."

The Chronicle, which Moyo once controlled, fixed on a potentially embarrassing detail in Mugabe's account: When Moyo was privately confronted with evidence of his duplicity, the president said, "tears started flowing down his cheeks."

Moyo stopped short of denying a coup plot. He acknowledged he had often met with senior military commanders. Asked whether they had discussed a coup, he said, "I will not dignify any of that stuff with any comment right now."

As for his supposed tears during the meeting with Mugabe, Moyo declined to confirm the account but said, "It might be a reflection on his cruelty. ... Is his office a torture chamber?"

In the 1990s, Moyo became known as an academic critic of Mugabe. But during his five years with the government, he was often described as the author of laws that restricted even the most basic political actions, such as handing out campaign materials or knocking on doors. His harsh media law led to the arrests of journalists and the shutting of several newspapers.

Trevor Ncube, who owns two of the three remaining independent weekly papers in Zimbabwe, was a close friend of Moyo's before he joined the government. Ncube said he watched in astonishment as Moyo transformed himself while in power.

Robert Mugabe is accused of election-rigging.

The end of Moyo's career in government can be traced to a ruling party meeting in November when he backed a candidate for vice president who was not favored by Mugabe. Moyo soon found himself marginalized, and in February he announced he would leave the party to run for parliament. Mugabe promptly fired him and gave him 48 hours to vacate his government house.

While Moyo is regarded within Zimbabwe's political community as a brainy ideological chameleon, he insisted he had not changed his views.

He joined the ruling party, he said, at a time when it was open to democratic reforms after nearly losing to the opposition in 2000. He left this year, he insisted, after becoming convinced that the party was reverting to its old, undemocratic ways.

Whatever the truth, Moyo's treatment of his home town during his years in power has the look of a long-term plan.

Like most of rural southern Zimbabwe, Tsholotsho was neglected after Mugabe took power in 1980. Unemployment is estimated at 80 percent. Many young adults are idle or have left to find work in South Africa or Botswana. Food is in short supply.

But unlike most towns its size, Tsholotsho has a paved road to the nearest city. It has electrical lines and street lights. The schools have computers.

Many here credit Moyo.

"I like his deeds, tar road, tower lights, and bore (water) holes," said Rhoda Sibanda, 48, who was walking down Tsholotsho's single paved street Friday wearing a Moyo campaign shirt. "It was just dust and gravel before."

Asked whether Mugabe's party might tamper with the Tsholotsho vote, Moyo looked puzzled. "I don't know," he said. "I hope not."