"Our challenge is to get Army back to the barracks," says Ncube - why has MDC failed to do so P Guramatunhu

"I hope we as Zimbabweans of different political persuasions will realise that our most fundamental collective challenge is how we can restore civilian politics by taking the military back to the barracks & out of our politics. This is a condition sine qua non of any progress," said Welshman Ncube.

As a rallying call, many Zimbabweans would agree removing this Zanu PF junta from power is indeed the “sine qua non condition” for Zimbabwe economic, social and political progress and stability. But, as is often the case, the devil is in the detail; how are we going to remove the junta?

A quick recall on how we got here will not be amiss!

“The gun will not rule Zimbabwe!” Mugabe has often said. And yet he is the one who invited the Army, Police and CIO to meddle in politics. He corrupted these key state institutions turning them into Zanu PF departments in all but name whose primary purpose was to keep the party in power at all cost. 

Army, Police and CIO have always played a clandestine, the hidden paw, role in the country’s messy elections marred by cheating, vote rigging and violence. The securocrats came out in the open in the 2008 elections; the pivotal role played by ZDF, ZRP and CIO in “Operation Mavhotera papi!” (Operation whom did you vote for!) in well-documented. The securocrats spearheaded the operation to punish the civilians for having rejected Mugabe and Zanu PF in the March 2008 elections and force them to vote for Mugabe in the June run-off. 

So, like all tyrants Mugabe ruled by fear and to give the bark and bite to the fear he invited the men with the guns to sit by his side. The gun wielding thugs’ brief was to frighten the civilian population and crash all descent to Zanu PF dictatorial rule. The more Zanu PF relied of the gun wielding thugs the more powerful the later became. It was just a matter of time before the gun wielding thugs seized power to become the ruling elite in their own right. 

The switch over happened last November when Commander Constantino Chiwenga and a number of senior ZDF officers stage the military coup that forced Robert Mugabe to step down as president. The coup plotters had worked very closely with former VP Mnangagwa in planning the coup and he was appointed president. Many of the coup plotters resigned their Army post to take up senior positions in the post-coup government. 

Before last November’s coup, Zimbabwe’s securocrats’ involvement is civilian governance was covert, the hidden paw. The coup has allowed the securocrats to seize power and overtly exercise power. The ZDF are Zanu PF and they constitute the government of Zimbabwe. 

So Professor Ncube is right, the challenge before us how to decouple Zanu PF, the political party, from ZDF, the national army. Whilst the nation needs the Army, every nation needs an Army to defend its borders, constitution and people. The super numeral role of the Army constituting the civilian government that President Mnangagwa, VP Chiwenga and the rest of the junta are fostering on the nation is the reason why Zimbabwe has been stuck for 38 years with this corrupt and tyrannical Zanu PF government. 

To remove this corrupt and tyrannical Zanu PF dictatorship from power we must first decouple ZDF from the party and send the former back to their barrack. This is where we are as a nation. 

As we all know, Professor Welshman Ncube is the spokesman of the MDC Alliance and, no doubt, he will be expecting “all Zimbabweans of different political persuasions” to rally behind MDC Alliance in the fight to remove the junta. That will be the most foolish thing the nation can do because we will only be making the same mistake that landed us in this hell in the first place. 

The people of Zimbabwe have risked life and limb to elect Professor Ncube and his fellow MDC fiends into power on the understanding that they will bring about the democratic changes, as their party’s name implied, the nation has been dying for. The changes to severe the undemocratic control and power Zanu PF exercised over ZEC, ZDF and other state institutions. In all their nearly 20 years in power and many golden opportunities to deliver the changes, MDC have failed to bring about even one single democratic change. Not even one change!

During the GNU MDC leaders had the golden opportunity to implement the democratic reforms which SADC, as the guarantor to the agreement, had forced Robert Mugabe and his Zanu PF to agree to. The reforms were meant to decouple Zanu PF, the political party, from the state institutions like ZEC, Police and the Army. Mugabe bribe Professor Ncube and his fellow MDC friends with the trappings of high office ministerial limos, very generous salaries and allowances, a former white-owned farm for Professor Ncube, a $4 million mansion for Tsvangirai, etc., etc. And in return MDC leaders forgot about the reforms. 

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it," said the writer and philosopher George Santayana. 

The immediate past George Santayana would want the people of Zimbabwe to remember is that MDC leaders are breathtakingly corrupt and incompetent, that they sold-out big time during the GNU when they wasted the many golden opportunities to implement the democratic reforms and thus end the Zanu PF dictatorship. It would be sheer folly for the people of Zimbabwe to rally behind these corrupt, incompetent and sell-out MDC Alliance leaders and trust them to finally deliver the democratic changes the nation has been dying for all these years. 

Whilst the overt presence of ex-military personal in Zanu PF and government will underline the urgent need implement the democratic reforms. The most pressing challenge before us is not how to so much how to get the soldiers back to the barracks but rather why we have failed to dismantle the Zanu PF dictatorship all these last 20 years. We would not have Chiwenga, Perrance Shiri, Sibusiso Moyo, and all these other coup thugs masquerading as VP, ministers, etc. if Professor Ncube and his sell-out MDC fiends had implemented the democratic reforms during the GNU.