Zimbabwe’s former education minister, Jonathan Moyo, has appealed to South African President Cyril Ramaphosa and former president Thabo Mbeki - as well as other African leaders and elders - to "save" ex-president Robert Mugabe from harassment by the country’s new regime.

Writing on his Twitter page, Moyo claimed that Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa was abusing Mugabe, and urged several current and former African leaders - including Ramaphosa, Mbeki, and current African Union chairperson and Rwandan President Paul Kagame - to step in and save the nonagenarian.

Moyo was among the leading figures of the G40 faction that had promoted Grace Mugabe to take over from her husband, until he was ousted during the November 15 military takeover and replaced with Mnangagwa.

This comes after Mugabe told the private Zimbabwe Independent newspaper that South Africa could have done "much more" to save him politically during last year's brief military takeover.

Speaking at his Blue Roof mansion in Harare, the veteran leader, when asked if he felt betrayed by his neighbours, said: "In a sense, yes."

But he conceded that none of Zimbabwe's neighbours, apart from South Africa, had the capacity to intervene.

"South Africa could have done much more. It did not have to send an army, but just to engage," he said.

Mugabe said the South African envoys at the height of the military intervention "gave a false impression that all was okay [and that] they had spoken, not just to us, but also to the soldiers, and then gave out that there was no need for intervention".

He said it was then that other countries in the region "just sat on their laurels and they said, 'ah well, South Africa says there’s no need [to intervene]'".

Early this month Mugabe gave his first press conference since his resignation on November 21. He told journalists that the army's intervention was "a coup" and that his successor Emmerson Mnangagwa was in power "illegally".

Those remarks have caused anger within the ruling Zanu-PF party, which has threatened to expel him and strip him of the privileges he enjoys as a former head of state.