Jonathan Moyo

On 19 November 2017, Moyo was expelled from ZANU–PF by the party's central committee. Other prominent G40 politicians, including Grace Mugabe, Saviour Kasukuwere, Patrick Zhuwao, Ignatius Chombo, Walter Mzembi, Shadreck Mashayamombe, Makhosini Hlongwane, Innocent Hamandishe, Samuel Undenge, and Sarah Mahoka were also expelled from the party. Moyo fled the country after his removal, and from his unknown location threatened bloodshed if Mugabe was not restored to power.

After two years as Minister of Information, and after winning a by-election in Bulawayo on 6 June 2015, Moyo was moved to the post of Minister of Higher and Tertiary Education on 6 July 2015. In that position he had control over Zimdef funds which he used for various purposes in Tsholotsho including funding Zanu PF political rallies and the purchase of bicycles that he distributed to political workers.

Mugabe fiercely criticised Moyo in June 2014, saying that Moyo was "plant[ing] seeds of division" in ZANU-PF by attacking his opponents within the party through the media. According to Mugabe, Moyo had appointed newspaper editors sympathetic to the opposition. Mugabe stressed that party members should not be enemies and differences "should not make you want to attack them in the paper".

Moyo was defeated in Tsholotsho North constituency by the MDC-T's Roselene Nkomo in elections which took place on 31 July 2013. Moyo tried to force through a recount of the votes but his attempt was blocked when Bulawayo High Court judge Justice Lawrence Kamocha barred the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) from conducting a vote recount in the constituency without an order of such effect from the Electoral Court and finalisation of the application of review. Despite Moyo's defeat, Mugabe appointed him as Minister of Information on 10 September 2013.

In May 2011, Moyo sued the Daily News for US$60,000 for reprinting former articles about his expulsion from Zanu-PF in 2005. He rejoined later. In September he sued the paper again, this time for a 6 September report which cited a 2007 US diplomatic cable in which Moyo voiced support for sanctions against President Robert Mugabe. In a follow-up article the next day it reported that Moyo had suggested which senior members of the party should be targeted by sanctions.

Standing again as an independent, Moyo was re-elected to the House of Assembly from Tsholotsho North constituency in the March 2008 parliamentary election. He received 3,532 votes, defeating MDC candidate Mgezelwa Ncube, who received 3,305 votes, as well as Zanu-PF candidate Alice Dube, who received 2,085 votes. He was the first independent candidate in Zimbabwe to ever win re-election. The mainstream MDC did not field a candidate in this constituency on the understanding that Moyo's victory would be good in the fight to remove Mugabe from power. However, no sooner had Moyo won did he start taking potshots at the MDC and openly defending and supporting Mugabe in newspaper articles. Some say he was angling for a cabinet position, something that did not happen.

His philanthropy, including scholarship programs and support for sport over many years, has earned Moyo a respected place in Tsholotsho, his family area. This philanthropy increased during the days leading up to the March 2005 parliamentary election, a fact that critics feel made his win for the parliamentary seat in the area inevitable.

The subsequent decision to set aside the Tsholotsho seat in the 2005 parliamentary election for female candidates was widely interpreted as punishing those who organised the unauthorised meeting, and in particular Moyo.

In February 2005 Moyo registered to run as an independent for the seat. Doing so earned the wrath of Mugabe, who expelled him from the party and the cabinet. He won the seat in the elections, held on 31 March.

In 2005, journalist and agronomist Asher Tarivona Mutsengi, then a student leader at Solusi University, criticised Moyo saying "... he will go down in the annals of history as a minister who lacked foresight and for pouring vitriol against his perceived opponents, his shopping spree in South Africa of scarce foodstuffs, causing unemployment to a multitude of journalists and a penchant for uncivilized propaganda." He went on to say, "... my final analysis is that he is heading for the precipice and his political prospects even if he wins the Tsholotsho seat that he is vying for as an independent are drab. He might be a spin-doctor and intelligent as some claim, but I don't subscribe to that myself."

In the lead-up to the 2004 party meeting, he held an unofficial meeting in Tsholotsho, of Zanu-PF political heavyweights including six provincial party chairmen, Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa, and a militant war veterans' leader, Joseph Chinotimba. It was aimed at contesting one of the two vice-presidential seats after the recent death of Simon Muzenda on 20 September 2003, seen as a stepping stone to the presidency in light of Mugabe's presumed retirement in 2008.

"He needs to be told that Zimbabwe will never be a colony again, never" Telling Tony Blair not to interfere in Zimbabwe during the days leading up to the 2002 presidential elections.

"Good Riddance" he said after Chief Justice Anthony Gubbay, 68, signed an agreement to go on leave immediately and to retire formally on 1 July 2001 following threats from war veterans led by Joseph Chinotimba.

As ZANU-PF spokesman, he described the 2000 election, in which the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) won a large minority of seats, as a "wake up call" and a "reality check for us".

During his 2000 to 2005 tenure, he crafted and defended, helped by Patrick Chinamasa, the Broadcasting Services Act (BSA) (2001), the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (Commercialisation) Act (2003), the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act (AIPPA) (2002), the Public Order and Security Act (2002), and the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (Commercialisation) Act (2003). This led to widespread criticism that he was attacking freedom of speech.

As Minister of Information, Moyo fought personal and government battles with the media from July 2000 until 2005, when he was expelled from ZANU-PF.

He beamed with pleasure and satisfaction when Chief Justice Gubbay resigned after being threatened by Joseph Chinotimba and company. When the Daily News was shut down, he said "The Daily News is a victim of the rule of law which it had been preaching since 1999."

"The Daily News is a victim of the rule of law which it had been preaching since 1999." He said, celebrating and beaming at the demise of the popular Daily News.

In January 1998 he moved to South Africa, to the University of Witwatersrand (WITS) to work on a project entitled The Future of the African Elite sponsored by the W. K. Kellogg Foundation. WITS later claimed that he had absconded with part of a 100 million rand research grant for the project. In October 2006 Moeletsi Mbeki, younger brother of former South African President Thabo Mbeki, and Witwatersrand University separately applied for an order to have Jonathan Moyo jailed the next time he visited South Africa.

In 1993 he was program director for the Ford Foundation in Nairobi. He departed under a cloud after allegations that he had embezzled US$88,000 from the organisation. As of 2018 he was still under indictment in Kenya.

Jonathan Nathaniel Mlevu Moyo (born 12 January 1957) is a Zimbabwean politician who served in the government of Zimbabwe as Minister of Higher Education from 2015 to 2017. He was previously Minister of Information and Publicity from 2000 to 2005 and again from 2013 to 2015. He was elected to the House of Assembly of Zimbabwe as an independent candidate in 2005 and 2008. He is considered the core architect of the AIPPA and POSA restrictive legislation.