ZANU-PF Politburo member Professor Jonathan Moyo has dismissed as political fallacy allegations that Generation 40 (G40) is a political faction within the revolutionary party angling itself in the succession matrix.
Addressing journalists at the Bulawayo Press Club on Friday evening, Prof Moyo said G40 was not a faction but a purely demographic issue that seeks to describe the generation from where the political future of the country is expected to derive its shape.
He said it was laughable that if one was to ask those that call G40 a political faction within Zanu-PF who the members of the faction were they would say: “Professor Moyo, Kasukuwere (Saviour) and Zhuwao (Patrick).”
Prof Moyo further quizzed: “How can a political faction have three people?”
He said the myth that G40 was a political faction within Zanu-PF tussling to succeed President Mugabe with the alleged Lacoste faction was a product of successionists’ political imagination that has no place in modern day politics.
Prof Moyo, who is the Minister of Higher and Tertiary Education, Science and Technology Development and Tsholotsho North legislator said when he coined the term G40, in an article, he was far from making it a political faction.
He said the term was simply a generational term that spoke to the demographic structure and the essentiality of the age group 18 years to 40 years in determining the election outcome and the direction of the country’s politics.
Prof Moyo said it was absurd and “absolutely stupid” for anyone serious in politics to ignore the generation which comprises the 18 to 40 age group as it was an integral part of the voting constituency and the country’s demographic structure in general.
“G40 is a term that I introduced not to mean a political party faction as has been interpreted and reported. I introduced the term as a political scientist. In fact that is the vocation I am most comfortable with. I introduced it not under any political pressure from anyone. It is a generational term and it’s purely demographic. And if anyone does not look at it that way then they are stupid.
“Demographic issues ought to speak for themselves. It is a term that I arrived at after analysing the demographic structure and it showed that the elections are going to be decided by the G40,” said Prof Moyo.