Taurai Masamba
The shadowy group Team Pachedu, which operates largely on social media, has been proved to be an American project which is targeting the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC).
Writing in a 24-item thread on his microblogging site Twitter on Thursday last week, former Cabinet Minister Prof Jonathan Moyo demonstrated that contrary to claims by some members of the group that it is a local initiative, Team Pachedu is an American project which was put in place to target ZEC.
Prof Moyo’s thread was in response to Team Pachedu’s tweet on Wednesday last week where it said: “Last year, we spent the entire Christmas holiday exposing the duplicity, hypocrisy and deceptiveness of Prof Moyo.”
The self-exiled former Minister of Information singled out the fact that when Team Pachedu introduced itself on Twitter in July 2018 before the elections held that year, it falsely claimed that of the six named members based outside Zimbabwe, three white and three black, were all Zimbabweans.
He pointed out that one of the white members, Wes Beal was an American. Beal is a co-founder founder of Team Pachedu. He is very active in US government circles and he works for NGP VAN Inc. The company is an American database company that deals with voting and politics and voting.
Prof Moyo exposed Team Pachedu’s lies using Beal’s past Twitter posts in which he indicated that “I am not Zimbabwe” and “I am one of the people that started Team Pachedu.”
The former G40 member raised a red flag over the potential danger that Zimbabwe faces because of Beal’s activities.
“Since he is not a Zimbabwean but an American and given his work as a database developer at NGP VAN, Inc in the US, specialised in designing and managing systems for voters rolls, voting and politics, Beal’s CV shows the damage he can do to Zim!”
Given the electoral focus of Team Pachedu on ZEC, there is no one else among its team members who has the technical expertise, experience, institutional base and high level contacts in the US Govt and its funding community that match Beal’s CV,” Prof Moyo posted.
Beal has never hidden Team Pachedu’s sinister agenda and bias against Zimbabwe. In July 2018 he boasted that: “Pachedu is not, never has been a "traditional" analysis group. We are a handful of volunteers who knew from the beginning we were BIASED and would be perceived as such no matter what, so never tried to hide our sympathies."
Prof Moyo highlighted that the Zimbabweans in Team Pachedu were mere runners to who did Beal’s biding.
“Given what Team Pachedu does, the Zimbabweans in it are runners and mouthpieces. In effect, they are Uncle Toms and running dogs of imperialism!” Prof Moyo said.
In February 2022, Beal confirmed he had not retired, but was on "sabbatical". In July he explained not only his sabbatical but that of Team Pachedu as well by disclosing that they were off Twitter, busy unravelling the voters roll. This proved who is in charge at Team Pachedu.
“Tellingly, Team Pachedu took a "winter sabbatical" to join Beal, who was already on sabbatical. Beal's sabbatical ended on 14 Aug 2022 - from 2021 - the rest ended theirs on 15 Aug 2022, having started on 13 May 2022 after Pachedu's failed 9 May ShutDownZimbabwe protest,” explained Prof Moyo.
Following the failure of Team Pachedu’s onslaught against ZEC in March this year using all manner of claims of voters roll irregularities and the flopping of its May protests, the group seems frustrated and is now contemplating using force against the election management body. At the end of August it tweeted that in view of the opposition’s lack of Parliamentary majority to the effect electoral reforms that it wants, “It (the issue) needs a civil resistance.”
“Given that Team Pachedu is targeting state institutions in general - and ZEC in particular - to incite a nationwide resistance campaign, it should be recalled that at its formation in 2018 - to signal its regime change agenda – Team Pachedu (has illegally) adopted ZEC colours onto its logo!,” Prof Moyo noted.
For year the opposition has been claiming without proof that it loses elections because of rigging by ZEC. Team Pachedu’s ongoing assault on ZEC indicates that the US is now targeting the national election management body in the hope of assisting the opposition to unseat ZANU PF.
