“The ‘new’ regime can be viewed from different angles, but the nub of it is this: there’s a recognition that the economic fiasco of the last 20 years was suboptimal, but Emmerson Mnangagwa and his fellow travellers will burn the house down if they feel it necessary. Make no mistake, their will to power is every bit as intense as Mugabe’s—as is their belief that they own the country’s choicest fruits by right of conquest,” wrote Stuart Doran in The Strategist ASPI.
“There’s no comprehending Zimbabwe without an appreciation of that mentality.”
It fair to say the ordinary Zimbabweans not only comprehended but accepted as a matter of cause the Zanu PF mentality that the country’s choicest fruits belonged to the ruling elite. Let us just say that reality was rammed down the the nation’s throat.
The country’s 1980 elections were supposed to be mark the end of white colonial oppression and to restoration of the black majority’s freedoms and rights including the right to a meaningful say in the governance of the country. Zanu PF operatives made it clear that if the party failed to win the elections the civil war would continue. So instead of the elections being about freely electing leaders, it was the hard choice of ending the war or not.
Of course, the people chose to end the civil war.
Once in power, Zanu PF moved swiftly and ruthlessly to create the de facto one-party dictatorship we have to this day. Each time the party felt an threat on its strangle hold on absolute power, it has dialled up the harassment, intimidation, beatings, rapes and has even murdered its critics and opponents in cold blood.
In the 2008 Zanu PF lost the elections and withheld the result for six weeks, to cook up the result. In the presidential run-off, the country witnessed the worse electoral violence the country had ever see.
“What was won the bullet cannot be undone by the ballot!” boasted Mugabe. That was all Zanu PF thugs, rogue war veterans and the corrupted security service personal wanted to hear; they were like blood thirsty wolves let loose penned sheep.
If there was ever any doubt that Zanu PF would rather burn down the house than allow anyone else to rule that was dispelled in 1983 when the party launched its Gukurahundi massacre. Over 20 000 innocent Zimbabweans were murdered for sole purpose of stamp on the nation’s conscience, in human blood, that Zanu PF has the absolute right to rule Zimbabwe and will not brook to hear anything said on the matter.
There is no doubt that Zanu PF ruling elite have enjoyed absolute power for the last 39 years and counting and they have enjoyed the choicest fruit too. Zanu PF leaders live in palatial Blue Roof mansion, they have vast business empires, they have posh cars, the likes of VP Chiwenga have 45 gold watches alone, etc.
Meanwhile the overwhelm majority of Zimbabweans are now living in heart breaking poverty. Unemployment has soared to dizzying heights of 90%. 3/4 of the population live on US$30 per month or less; way below the US$ 650 per month poverty datum line.
Zimbabwe’s health service has all but collapse. It is common for the country’s main hospitals to run out even such basic things as pain killers and bandages. The country’s doctors are on strike, they demanding better pay than the current US$ 40 per month. It is all very well for the ruling elite; they have stopped using the local health service decades ago, they use five star services outside Zimbabwe at great expense - to the impoverished Zimbabwean taxpayer.
After 39 years of Zanu PF ruling elite robbing the nation blind what should be obvious to anyone with eyes to see and common sense is that the situation in Zimbabwe CANNOT go on. Sadly the Zanu PF ruling elite are not only as blind as a mole but have no common sense too.
Concerned about Zimbabwe’s worsening economic meltdown and the political paralysis caused by the decades of the corrupt and tyrannical Zanu PF dictatorship, Zimbabwe Heads of Christian Denominations (ZHOCD) have argued suspension of the country’s meaningless electoral process and the formation of government of national unity (GNU).
“Let me emphatically state, at the outset, that my office is a creature of the Constitution and laws of Zimbabwe, both which I am sworn to uphold, defend, obey and respect to their letter and spirit,” was President Mnangagwa’s response.
“Our July 2018, harmonised elections were adjudged to be largely transparent, free, fair and credible (and an) expression of the will of the people of Zimbabwe.”
Only someone who is blind and devoid of common sense would still insists elections in which 3 million Zimbabweans were denied the vote (he claims to have won with 2.6 million), rural voters where frog matched to vote for Zanu PF, the was no free media, etc. were free, fair and credible. ZEC failed to produce something as basic as a voters’ roll; for Pete’s sake.
Zimbabwe is a pariah state ruled by corrupt, incompetent, vote rigging thugs who believe they have the divine right to rule the country “by right of conquest”, as Stuart Doran put it. The cold reality is that as long as Zimbabwe remains a pariah state, the country’s economic meltdown will only get worse; because it is near impossible to do business in a pariah state.
Whilst the ZHOCD’s proposed GNU is in itself a tacit acknowledgement that last year’s elections were flawed and illegal and failed to produce a legitimate government. However, on the more substantive issue of offering the nation a way out of the economic and politic mess, the GNU will do no such thing.
A GNU in which Zanu PF is allowed to retain its dictatorial powers is a waste of time. ZHOCD dared to suggest the need for the GNU to implemented reforms but, with Zanu PF insisting last year’s elections were free and fair, that is a lost cause.
Zanu PF will never reform itself out of office. Even the overwhelming majority of the Zimbabweans reduced into paupers and the country on the brink of social and political instability, Mnangagwa et al will continue to demand the pound of flesh and more!
“Tarry a little. There is something else.
This bond doth give thee here no jot of blood.
The words expressly are “a pound of flesh.”
Take then thy bond, take thou thy pound of flesh,
But in the cutting it if thou dost shed
One drop of Christian blood, thy lands and goods
Are by the laws of Venice confiscate
Unto the state of Venice.”
Portia: The Merchant of Act 4 Scene 1
William Shakespeare
Zimbabwe’s political Shylocks are the prosecutors, judge, the jury, the executioners, the legislators, every thing; their word and their word alone is law. Mnangagwa et al bond gives them the choicest fruit, the pound of flesh and any consequential bleeding and even death is of no concern of them!
Mnangagwa and his fellow Zanu PF cronies do not have the divine right to rule Zimbabwe by conquest or whatever. They never had any such right. It was totally irresponsible of us to have allowed these Zanu PF thugs to impose the de facto one-party dictatorship.
It is unforgivable that we have allowed the dictatorship to last four decades and with such crippling economic and political consequences.
It is insane to allow this Zanu PF dictatorship to remain in power even for one day more!
Mnangagwa and company rigged last year’s elections, they have no mandate to govern and must step down. The country needs the political space to implement the democratic reforms and restore the individual freedoms and human rights including the right to free, fair and credible elections.
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