Fact check: Herald's reporting on Nkosana Moyo's Chamisa comments is misleading - ZimFact
Ngoni Mhuruyengwe
September 14, 2021
On Tuesday, Sept 14, The Herald published a story entitled: “Nkosana Moyo lays into Chamisa”.
In the article, the paper reported that Nkosana Moyo, president of the Alliance for the People’s Agenda (APA), “has described fellow opposition leader, Mr Nelson Chamisa, as a clueless politician who does not have the requisite skills to lead a nation”.
According to The Herald: “This comes as there is a growing realisation in the opposition that Mr Chamisa, who now leads a smaller faction of the MDC after losing out to Mr Douglas Mwonzora in the battle to control the opposition, has no plans beyond the rhetoric and infantile claims.”
The article is based on a video that the paper said is “circulating on media platforms”.
However, The Herald’s report, misleadingly, does not mention that the video is not new. The video has only recently resurfaced during social media debates around opposition coalitions.
A search reveals that the video was in fact taken from a Facebook Live video posted by Moyo on his official page on March 30, 2018. This was during campaigns towards the 2018 election, in which Moyo was a presidential candidate.
In that livestream, Moyo spoke about the qualities that he believed Zimbabwean voters should look for in a leader. A viewer then asked Moyo: “Would you vote for Chamisa and why not?”
Moyo responded: “Well, he (viewer) is implying that he knows I wouldn’t. You’re asking me a direct question and the answer is no, I would not vote for Chamisa because I don’t think he has got the skills that my country requires. I have just articulated what I think a leader at this point in time in our country should understand. Our leader has to understand how an economy works above all. I don’t believe that Chamisa has got that understanding, I am sorry. If he did, I would join MDC and support him. Democracy is beautiful because you are free to vote for him. I personally will not vote for him because I genuinely do not believe that somebody who does not understand the intricacies of finance, which lead directly into how you support investments, what creates confidence and credibility, can get us out of the mess we are in. So I wouldn’t.”
Conclusion
While Nkosana Moyo has indeed publicly criticised Chamisa, The Herald article on his comments can be misleading as it does not mention the fact that the video is from the 2018 election campaign period.
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