Mugabe and Mnangagwa vow to "crush" opponents - greatest opponent is the economy, "crush" it. W Mukori

"I spent over 16 years sleeping outside protecting this man (pointing at Mugabe) while he slept on a bed. I cannot then turn around and plan against him. I know there are mapete (cockroaches), who might want to fathom the idea of trying to remove him. My job is to defend him and if I catch one of the cockroaches, then I will crush them before informing the President because it is part of my job," Mnangagwa said.

Mnangagwa was responding to Mugabe’s threat to crush war veterans who were refusing anyone else other than Mnangagwa to be the tyrant’s successor and the opposition alike.

“Zanu PF is saying group, in a matter in which we desire, we give you just one of these (showing clenched fist),” said Mugabe.

“I hope we are building that one huge fist which will settle firmly once again all the little party organisations. I hope our preparations will be a success today.”

Crush this crush that; that is all Mugabe and Mnangagwa ever talk about. Well the greatest threat to both these murderous tyrants’ continued stay in power is not coming from within Zanu PF or from the equally divided, corrupt and incompetent opposition. It is coming from the country’s worsening economic meltdown; let us see them deliver the elusive economic recovery because without it their days in power are numbered!

Mugabe blatantly rigged the 2013 elections; thanks to MDC leaders’ breath-taking incompetence, for it was their failure to get even one democratic reform implemented that allowed the tyrant to rig the election. Mugabe thought he would rig the economic recovery with his $27 billion ZimAsset plan. The plan was a still birth; not even his “all weather” Chinese friends would waste money bankrolling the hare-brain plan.

ZimAsset promised 2.2 million new jobs in five years starting in August 2013; three years down the line, it has failed to create even one new job. Indeed, last year the nation has lost over 30 000 jobs as more and more companies have closed. The news the regime is now planning to reintroduce the Z$ by the backdoor in the form of bond notes has sent everyone into a panic.

Unemployment has soared to the nauseating heights of 90% plus and still the economy continues to get worse. The foreign currency shortage is just another manifestation of the worsening economic meltdown.

“Above all, the party must be in the lead in addressing the needs of our people. The youth recently made known their expectations, the war veterans whose families must be supported,” Mugabe told his Zanu PF central committee meeting (the party’s next highest decision making body outside congress).

“Cash shortages are being faced across the board by our people who cannot easily access their savings or earnings. You might have deposited money in the bank, you have savings in the bank, but there is no money. But this is a temporary problem which should be behind us soon, sooner rather than later.”

No the economic meltdown is a problem that have seen for years; the mismanagement, corruption and lawlessness, the root causes of the economic meltdown, did not start a year ago but go back to 1980. For the last 36 years we have done nothing to end these cancerous problems allowing them to grow and spread.

By describing the cash crunch as a “temporary problem” shows that this Zanu PF regime is still in denial about the economic meltdown, the tragic human suffering it is causing and, worst of all, the need for the regime to swallow its pride and accept the need for the pre-requisite political reforms, the forerunner of the economic reforms and economic recovery.   

Only a new government born out of free and fair elections, as contrast to rigged ones, will have the confidence and political will to implement the tough economic reforms necessary to get the national economy back on track again.

Zanu PF itself is a casualty of the economic meltdown, the years of misrule has resulted in the national economic cake shrinking and the party members are fighting to the death for crumbs. Abject poverty awaits the losers! Zanu PF was doomed to fail from the start because resources are finite and the regime’s extravagant wastefulness was doomed to come to a crushing end as resources run out.

Whilst it is good that this corrupt and oppressive Mugabe dictatorship is finally collapse, we need to clear the deck for a clean fresh start, we must be care not to let the tyrant to cling on to power and drag the whole nation into the abyss as many others tyrants like Colonel Gaddafi of Libya and Syria’s Assad is doing.

We must redouble our efforts and demand the political reforms now before the economic hardships force the people take street protests or worse. Mugabe and Mnangagwa will not hesitate to crush the protestors pushing the nation into a cycle of mindless violence and bloodshed! If this was to happen then these two men of violence and their cronies must know that this time they will be held to account.