Tuesday 26 April 2016

Mnangagwa delivered KO on Mugabe and G40 but to inherit a poisoned chalice. By Wilbert Mukori







As soon as Grace Mugabe returned from her extended Christmas Holiday in Singapore last year she got her G40 factional team together and she took up her meet the rallies from where she had left off. The sole purpose of the rallies was to de-campaign VP Emmerson Mnangagwa who occupied pole position in the race to replace Robert Mugabe as leader of Zanu PF and the country’s president.


 


Government business came to a complete halt to facilitate the rallies and no expense was spared. ZBC covered the rallies live from start to finish. Grace was the principle speaker and her pitch was simple enough – she would make a better president than VP Mnangagwa. Getting former VP Joyce Mujuru “dumped” from the party to stop her being elected VP in 2014 had been a walk in the park compared to task of forcing Mnangagwa of the pole position in the race to succeed Mugabe!


 


Although Grace and G40 had the clear advantage of having her husband’s in their corner; they were free to attack Mnangagwa and his supporters under the pretext they were defending Mugabe from those who wanted to force him unconstitutionally out of office. The G40 faction’s greatest weakness was that although they landed countless punches, putting them way ahead on points, it was clear none of the punches bothered Mnangagwa and his supporters.


 


By the time Zanu PF held its party congress in Victoria Falls in December last year it was clear that the G40 factions was running out of steam and forcing through the resolution that the party must restore the gender parity in the presidium was a desperate effort. The faction’s hope was that Mugabe will then replace VP Mnangagwa with a woman. Why VP Mnangagwa and not VP Mphoko, for example? Everyone knew that sooner or later Mnangagwa will hit back and everyone knew if the punch landed – light out!


 


The clash between G40’s Saviour Kasukuwere, whom Mugabe had appointed party’s Political Commissar (PC) and Chris Mutsvangwa, who was then Minister for War vets and a known Mnangagwa loyalist, was proxy war between the two factions. G40 members including Grace and Kasukuwere criticized Mutsvangwa and the war vets for demanding that they should be given special consideration because of their liberation war credentials. Even Mugabe chipped in saying the war vets must not “flaunt” their war credential as if they alone fought the war.


 


Mutsvangwa was stunned by the criticism and called a meeting of war vets to protest. Mugabe stepped in and used the Riot Police with water cannon and tear-gas to stop the meeting.


 


Since the 2000 referendum on the proposed new constitution which Zanu PF lost the party had used the war vets as its foot-soldiers to intimidate, beat, rape and even murder innocent Zimbabweans to help Mugabe and Zanu PF stay in power. Even a heartless tyrant like Mugabe must have realized that tear-gassing the very people who had been betrayed all they had stood for during the civil war to gratify his selfish greed was a outrage, particularly since he still need their blind loyalty to remain in power. When Mugabe proposed to meet the war vets of 7 April 2016, he was reaching out to appease them.


 


When the war vets demanded that Minister Kasukuwere must be dismissed as PC ahead of the meeting; Mugabe hit back. He said the war vet association was an “affiliate” organization to Zanu PF and thus could not dictate how the party should be run.


 


The war vets hit straight back and told Mugabe they were the stockholders in Zanu PF, they go nowhere, and leaders like him were merely the stakeholders who would come and go. In a recent interview General Constantine Chiwenga reinforced the same message saying he was the “stockholder of Zimbabwe”!


 


Robert Mugabe is a seasoned politician and he knew immediately the game was up for him and the G40 faction.


 


“Buoyed by recent events in the warring Zanu-PF, the party faction rallying behind embattled Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa's mooted presidential aspirations are said to be resuscitating their plans to either persuade or cause President Robert Mugabe to retire before the country's eagerly-anticipated 2018 national elections,” said a report in Bulawayo 24.


 


“Well-placed Zanu-PF sources told the Daily News yesterday that the mood within Team Lacoste (Mnangagwa faction) was ebullient, as the camp felt that it had finally weathered the relentless onslaught that it had experienced from its avowed party foes, the Generation 40 (G40) group, over the past year.”


 


Of course the Mnangagwa have won the party’s factional war what they will soon learn is that Zanu PF will still have to win free, fair and credible national elections; this is going to be the mother of all electoral battles and the factional war they have just won is a mere skirmish in comparison! 


 


Zimbabwe’s economy is in total meltdown and VP Mnangagwa may be able to end some of Mugabe’s stupid policies like the indigenisation law but to consolidate his own hold on power he will keep all the deadwood behind the mismanagement and corruption, the root causes of the economic meltdown.


 


Besides having won the factional war with the help of the rogue war vets who believe they have the veto as contrast to everyone else who will have the vote, on who should rule Zimbabwe it is clear Mnangagwa is banking on the war vets helping him rig the 2018 elections.


 


Zimbabwe’s economic meltdown has resulted in unemployment soaring to 90% plus, millions of our people now live in abject poverty, health and education have all but collapsed, etc. The economic situation is socially and politically unsustainable and the key to ending the economic meltdown is free, fair and credible elections. Zanu PF has never won a free and fair elections; of all people Mnangagwa will know this since he has helped Mugabe rig the past elections; and it will not do so now even with a new leader.


 


So this is Mnangagwa’s dilemma; hold free and fair elections and lose power after all these years of waiting his turn. Rig the next elections face the music of the social and/or political instability brought on by the worsening economic meltdown! Yes President Mugabe has final lost his iron grip on power but he will have the last laugh over the unlucky Mnangagwa who has not only waited patiently for 36 year to take over the presidency from Mugabe now finds he is inheriting the poisoned chalice!



5 comments:

  1. Ambassador Thomas Jr should know that his predecessor Ambassador Chris Dell said Tsvangirai was "a flawed and indecisive character". He will find that to be so for himself soon enough!

    Many Zimbabweans have been slow in realizing what a corrupt and incompetent individual Tsvangirai is and the na-tion has paid dearly for this as MDC failed to implement even one reform necessary for free and fair elections during the GNU landing us all in the political and economic hell we now find ourselves stuck in.

    It is the failure by some Zimbabweans to see Tsvangirai and his fellow MDC leaders for the corrupt and incompetent individual they are that is making the nation's fight to get out of this mess so difficult. I hope Ambassador Thomas will not take long to see Tsvangirai for the flawed character he is and move on.

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  2. I must say, I am over the moon that the phony factional war in Zanu PF is finally drawing to a conclu-sion. The very fact that it was taking place and both sides were spending so much time and treasure fighting it at a time when the nation was facing the serious economic meltdown threatening the very lives of millions of our people showed just how totally divorced from reality this regime has become. As for which faction won it is a matter of indifference, what matters is the phony war is over and now we can concentrate on making sure we have free, fair and credible elections because that is the starting off point in rebuilding this nation.

    Mnangagwa should concentrate in pushing Mugabe out now so he can serve the remainder of the ty-rant's term because he will never win the next elections as they will be free, fair and credible. How can he ever win free and fair elections given his track record of inspiring the Gukurahundi massacre and after President Mugabe he is guilty of masterminding the vote rigging and election violence that have become the norm in this country.

    Mnangagwa should by right be send to The Hague to stand trial for all the crimes he has committed against the people of Zimbabwe. If we failed to send him there then we would have failed ourselves and to send him to State House instead would be one of the most foolish things this nation has ever done!

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    Replies
    1. Our failure to differentiate the good from bad, the visionary leaders from the murderous criminals, is at the very heart of our failure to rule ourselves. It is when we have all the evidence the individual is corrupt, incompetent and, worse still, a vote rigging murderer as is the case here with Mnangagwa and still some idiots still want him as leader that one realized why we are our own worst enemy!

      Mnangagwa does not realize the game is up as is the case with all the other Zanu PF cronies but that is no problem because they will go regardless.

      "You have sat too long here for any good you have been doing. Depart, I say, and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!" Cromwell said dismissing the Rump Parliament. The nation should have told Mugabe and his cronies to go a long time ago.

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  3. Well it is great to know that there will be no more Grace Mugabe rallies, Mafira kureva can now get a well-earned rest! The nation will be saved from having to listen to her long speeches starting nowhere and going nowhere.


    It was only two years ago when Grace bust on the country's political stage and cause such a storm that ripped Zanu PF apart. She wanted Joyce Mujuru "baby dumped" and get she wish. She wanted Mnangag-wa demoted and her self-appointed in his place but that has proven to be a bridge too far. The greatest irony is her future after Mugabe is no longer the center of power in the land would have been better under Mujuru than under Mnangagwa, especially after her going after him too and now failed.


    Zanu PF is a party of ruthless thugs the dramatic and chaotic end of the party is in keeping with what one would expect from a party whose members had greed as the only one thing they had in common.

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  4. @ Mbanje

    Our failure to differentiate the good from bad, the visionary leaders from the murderous criminals, is at the very heart of our failure to rule ourselves. It is when we have all the evidence the individual is corrupt, incompetent and, worse still, a vote rigging murderer as is the case here with Mnangagwa and still some idiots still want him as leader that one realized why we are our own worst enemy!

    Mnangagwa does not realize the game is up as is the case with all the other Zanu PF cronies but that is no problem because they will go regardless.

    "You have sat too long here for any good you have been doing. Depart, I say, and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!" Cromwell said dismissing the Rump Parliament. The nation should have told Mugabe and his cronies to go a long time ago.

    ReplyDelete