Former Higher Education Minister Jonathan Moyo says President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s six-day trip to China last week was a cover up to use State funds to buy Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front party regalia for the coming elections.

Mnangagwa was invited by China for the official visit his foreign official foreign visit.

Jonathan Moyo, a strong critic of Mnangagwa now living in exile following the resignation of his benefactor President Robert Mugabe after military intervention to stop the country from being hijacked by criminals, says the party used diamond revenues and State funds to buy regalia in 2013.

He says the regalia which was worth $70 million was bought from the Democratic Republic of Congo and China.

ZANU-PF national political commissar Engelbert Rugeje said the party will distribute 15 million T-shirts, 15 million caps and two million wrappers for women.

“We want to paint the country with our regalia such that out of every three people you meet, two will be in ZANU-PF party regalia,” he said.

Moyo told the Standard yesterday that Mnangagwa was an unmitigated disaster.

“In constitutional terms, he is no better than Muzorewa, whose illegal regime was shortlived and is now forgotten as an obscure footnote in history and a constitutional opprobrium,” he said.

“Just like Muzorewa, Mnangagwa is illegal and supported by the military because he’s unpopular with the masses and is thus unelectable yet he has an exaggerated Muzorewa-like ‘huruyadzo’ mentality.

“Mandarins in the coup government know this and that’s why they are currently bent on unprecedented asset-stripping and looting of state resources; they know that they are in an illegal regime with legs made of clay as was Muzorewa’s regime.”