Prof Jonathan Moyo breathes fire

Former Zimbabwe government minister Professor Jonathan Moyo is at war with Zimbabwe Electoral Commission(ZEC) after the later misstated facts about the controversial issue of ballot printing.

Since Chamisa’s BBC HardTalk interview Moyo has been questioning why the BBC interviewer, Stephen Sackur, said ballot papers have already been printed when candidate names have not even been finalised from all parties.

Now it appears ZEC have not done their homework and rushed to blame Moyo who was simply quoting a mistake from the BBC presenter.

“Now they’re attributing @stephensackur‘s “BALLOTS PRINTED” claim to me!,” said Moyo.

Below is another message from Moyo on the issue:

“There’s a SCANDALOUS claim made in @BBCHARDtalk with @nelsonchamisa which needs a response from #ZEC, #JuntaPF, @BBCHARDtalk & @UKinZimbabwe: HAVE THE BALLOT PAPERS BEEN PRINTED as declared by @stephensackur, when the candidates & election dates are not known? HUGE RIGGING PLOT!”

ZEC ignored the message above and went on to attack Moyo over Stephen Sackur’s mistake via state controlled media:

THE Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (Zec) has dismissed Professor Jonathan Moyo’s “nonsensical” claims that the electoral body has already printed ballot papers for this year’s harmonised elections.

Prof Moyo – who is in self-imposed exile – has been in overdrive on Twitter insinuating rigging has started with printing of ballot papers.

He bases his claims on last week’s HardTalk interview where BBC journalist Steven Sackur grilled MDC-T’s Advocate Nelson Chamisa.

There is a part that Prof Moyo quotes which he says indicates the papers have already been printed.

Speaking at a media training workshop organised by the Zimbabwe Union of Journalists (ZUJ) here yesterday, Zec Commissioner Mrs Faith Sebata said it was common sense that ballot papers can only be printed after the nomination courts sit and candidates for the election have been confirmed.

A majority of parties are still battling to come up with a list of candidates to represent them in the polls.

Meanwhile, Moyo has received overwhelming support from many people over the issue.

“Isn’t it that Sackur expressed that in his interview, hate Prof or love him from that interview we have the same line of thinking that UK is complicity in rigging for Junta.There’s no misinterpretation there. @Zimpapers are playing their usual misinformation role to benefit their controllers & have calculated that many of the people who will read their deliberate lie will not have seen the original tweets & are probably not on Twitter,” said one person.