@ Paidamoyo Muzulu
Stupid MPs in Zimbabwe electing the President?
THE maverick Edison Zvobgo once said in Parliament: "Mr Speaker Sir, half the people in this August House are stupid."
The statement is hilarious, but the reality smacks hard if one considers what happened in the National Assembly on Wednesday.
The Speaker then did not find the statement amusing and quickly asked Zvobgo to withdraw the offensive statement.
Zvobgo being a man a man of dexterity in speaking retorted: "I stand guided, Mr Speaker, and would like to withdraw my words and rephrase. Mr Speaker, half the people in this August house are NOT stupid."
The House we are told, burst in applause.
At the turn of the century, with the advent of the opposition MDC, Vice-President Simon Muzenda told a rally somewhere in Masvingo that even if Zanu-PF nominates a baboon, the electorate will vote for it and represent them in Parliament.
These two statements are poignant.
Zanu-PF does not care about the type of leadership it places before the electorate.
They will simply be voted into power.
The party has an entitlement mentality that people who are not fit to even be cell leaders in the village find themselves in the august House.
This week, MP Blessing Makumire during the question and answer session asked the government what it was doing about demonstrations or strikes by nurses across Zimbabwe general hospitals.
Asked Makumire: "Madam Speaker, the question is, are the nurses still on strike or have they resolved the reason why they are on strike?"
A fair question. A question that spoke to what many Zimbabweans wanted to hear about health services in the country.
Before the minister could respond, a Zanu-PF proportional representation MP Nomsa Chaimvura interjected: "Hazvinei newe. (That has nothing to do with you)." The Hansard recorded.
The audacity, ignorance of Chaimvura was astounding.
Even the Deputy Speaker did not find it amusing.
She ruled: "Honourable Chaimvura, you have gone beyond bounds. Please withdraw your statement."
With her tail tucked between her legs, Chaimvura withdrew her statement.
In my more than 10 years of covering Zimbabwe's parliament, I can safely say Chaimvura is not a rare species from Zanu-PF.
A majority of the members are of that ilk.
They come to interject.
To them opposition MPs should not speak, they should not hold the Executive to account.
They are merely there to warm the green benches or seats.
Chaimvura fits squarely into the lot that Zvobgo call "stupid" and Muzenda called "baboons".
There is nothing honourable about her behaviour.
Lands, Agriculture, Fisheries, Water and Rural Development minister Anxious Masuka, standing in for the Health minister Douglas Mombeshora, responded to Makumire's question, but the answer had a subtext of threatening the nurses.
"I urge that going forward, we should look at the Labour Act so that should we have grievances, we follow the grievance handling in the Labour Act," Masuka said.
"Let me reiterate that the government that is led by His Excellency, Dr ED Mnangagwa is a people's government, it is a listening government.
"Between today and tomorrow, government workers are going to have a living wage adjustment, which is adequate."
The stupidity of Chaimvura to compete for the title of being the most vocal interjector jogged my mind to the question of Constitutional Amendment No. 3: The omnibus amendment that, among other things, seeks to lengthen the presidential and parliamentary term from five to seven years, abolish direct election of the President and replace it with parliament voting for the President, abolish the Zimbabwe Gender Commission and the duty of defence forces from upholding the Constitution to acting in accordance with the constitution.
Zanu-PF is adamant that these crucial changes should be done in Parliament and no referendum should be done on the amendment.
The cherry on top is scrapping of the 2028 elections and having the Executive and Parliament as presently constituted serve until 2030.
Let us for one moment think that the "stupid" and "baboon" MPs will pass this amendment without a referendum.
It is as obvious as the sun rises from the east that the Bill will pass without amendments.
It is also sickening that the same "stupid" and "baboon" MPs will bear the heavy responsibility of voting for a President in the august House.
We are done for as a country if this omnibus amendment is passed and signed into law.
Zimbabwe's future will be in the hands of "stupid" MPs, as Zvobgo said.
Electing a President is an onerous task.
It is entrusting the country's fate into the hands of one man.
And this one man's electoral college is made up of the same stupid MPs that Zvobgo decried in Parliament.
It is clear what happens when the electorate entrusts leadership to questionable characters.
The United States after November 2024 elections is a good example.
The world economy is now in turmoil even though the war is being fought in "far away" Iran.
We know the embarrassment as a country we have collectively suffered when our leaders on international stages fail to grasp common concepts such as artificial intelligence.
It comes as no shock why Zimbabwe has been creamed off in bilateral deals.
Chaimvura represents what is bad with us as a country.
We entrust leadership to people not fit for office.
We entrust our future to "stupid" people as Zvobgo would say.
We have voted for "baboons" as Muzenda said because Zanu-PF decided so.
This episode should trigger us to think deeper about the future of our country.
The leadership we want as a country and the values we stand for.
One cannot help, but sigh: It's leadership, stupid!
I'm out!”
If the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth must be said, then it must be said Edison Zvobgo was lying when he said: "Mr Speaker Sir, half the people in this August House are stupid." What the fly on the wall would have said is “Everyone in this August House is stupid, including our Maverick hero Edison Zvobgo himself. The stupid do not self diagnose.
Edison Zvobgo was a shrewd guy, that much I would readily admit. He was smart enough to pick up on one of the ills, if not treated, would condemn Zanu PF to a party of stupid murderous thugs blundering from pillar to post. "The Mozambique syndrome," Edison call the illness.
"Whenever they lost an argument when we were in Mozambique, they would accuse you of being CIA to avoid the substantive issues," he explained.
“Today they call you an American puppet to avoid responsibility.”
The Mozambique syndrome was used to stifle meaningful debate and democratic discourse within the party and when Zanu PF formed the first black government after independence in 1980 the stifling was extended to a national level. The consequences of stifling debate and democratic discourse was to produce a party and then a nation of yes-man, of stupid idiots!
Edison Zvobgo was smart enough to see the folly of the Mozambique syndrome and by failing to do something to end it he condemned the nation to being governed by idiots.
Zvobgo himself was a victim of the Mozambique syndrome in that he was the one who presided over the creation of the executive presidency, with tyrannical powers. As soon as that was done, Mugabe sidelined Zvobgo to minister without portfolio.
Zimbabwe is a failed state, the consequence of 46 years and counting of being governed by stupid men and women! The opportunity to end the Zanu PF dictatorship has been wasted by MDC/CCC leaders after Zanu PF bribed the lot and, for their party, they too adopted the Mozambique syndrome stifling debate and democratic discourse just as Zanu PF has done.
The people’s failure to see how MDC/CCC leaders have been running with the povo hare and hunting with the Zanu PF hounds has not helped in the fight to cure ourselves of curse of the Mozambique syndrome. An ignorant, naive and gullible electorate has been easily conned by both Zanu PF and opposition leaders to do stupid things time and time again.
