Mnangagwa is "crocodile out of water," says Magaisa - Mugabe knows that is rubbish N Garikai

Alex Magaisa, you were MDC-T leader, Morgan Tsvangirai’s chief advisor, then Prime Minister, for nearly a year during the GNU. MDC failed to get even one democratic reform implemented and yet this was by far the single most important task the party was supposed to do. Worse still, MDC went on to contest the July 2013 elections with no reforms in place and against the advice of SADC leaders. What is the point of having a chief advisor if he is totally useless – you must admit yourself that you were utterly useless!

The truth is Magaisa, you say a lot but it is all rubbish. Your prediction on the recent cabinet reshuffle in Zimbabwe is a case in point.

“The reshuffle was only ever going to be about succession,” you concluded in your article in Spotlight Zimbabwe. “The principal target was Mnangagwa and the appointments, demotions and removals have been designed with this in mind. It’s a clear demolition job. Those who remain are essentially working on notice.

“The next big event now is the ZANU PF Conference in December. Mugabe could use that conference to complete the job, hiding behind party organs and processes to do it for him.

“For Mnangagwa and Lacoste, the writing is clearly on the wall. They will probably take it on the chin and hope to fight another day. But it’s slipping away and as indicated in the last BSR, they are so far behind on points that they now desperately need a knockout. The crocodile is running out of water. But it is a resilient species. It has survived where dinosaurs are long extinct. Maybe, and only just maybe, a small window still remains … maybe Lady Fortuna is still to come bearing gifts.”

This is all utter nonsense!

To say the reshuffle was about the succession war between G40 and Lacoste is stating the obvious, so you get no points for that.

The reshuffle should have been about saving the nation from the serious economic meltdown brought on by decades of gross mismanagement and rampant corrupt but, frankly, no serious political analyst expected that from President Mugabe. The only way the country will ever have any meaningful economic recovery is after removing this corrupt and tyrannical Mugabe dictatorship.

The country had its best-ever chances to end the Zanu PF dictatorship during the GNU when all MDC had to do was implement a raft of democratic reforms. The chances were all wasted because MDC was a party of corrupt and incompetent individuals. Someone got Tsvangirai a chief advisor, at great expense, hope he would get MDC to implement the reforms; he turned out to be a total waste of time and money! But I am digressing from today’s topic of the reshuffle.

It is nonsense to even suggest that President Mugabe has dealt any serious blow to Mnangagwa as a result of the reshuffle. Taking away the Minister of Justice portfolio from Mnangagwa will do nothing to remove him from his pole position in the race to succeed Mugabe. Mugabe did not have the guts to land the serious blow – fire Mnangagwa as VP – and you admitted so yourself in the first paragraph of your longwinded article.   

“The obvious target of the reshuffle was Vice President Mnangagwa and his faction, Lacoste. But as predicted in the last article, Mugabe was never going to fire Mnangagwa in this reshuffle – not directly anyway. The aim was to isolate him by whittling down his powers, sacking or demoting his allies and leaving him exposed.”

The real question that you should have dealt with is; why is President Mugabe; a ruthless and murderous tyrant with a reputation going straight for the jugular vein to dispatch all those who dare stand in his way and, in this case, his shrew wife’s way to be president; finding himself in this unusual position of “never going to fire Mnangagwa”? He disposed of former VP Mujuru is a matter of four months but, three years the attack on Mnangagwa was first launch, the crocodile is still alive and thriving!

Mugabe was beside himself with rage because Mnangagwa had said someone was trying to poison him, he did not say who but we all know who his prime suspect is.

The truth is since the booting out of Mai Mujuru and her supporters there was only one real faction left in Zanu PF and that is the Mnangagwa faction. President Mugabe has done his best to create this new G40 faction from nowhere but with little success. All the Zanu PF members, especially the war veterans, be they employed in the civil service or security sector or unemployed like Chris Mutsvangwa and his rogue war veterans; know they will all be put out to pasture with none of the privileges they are enjoying. Like it or not these war veterans are the heart and soul of Zanu PF.

By firing Mnangagwa from his VP position President Mugabe knows that he be declaring war on all the war veterans wherever they happen to be. All he has to fight in his corner are the Zanu PF youth and women’s league members and a handful of Zanu PF bigwigs like Professor Jonathan Moyo. He is smart enough to know that is a fight he is sure to lose!

Time is on Ngwena’s side, crocodiles can go for months even years feeding on something insubstantial as camel dung and the odd fly, he can wait. It is President Mugabe and his wife who know time is their worst enemy, they need Ngwena knocked off his pole position yesterday. The reshuffle was a golden opportunity to deliver the KO punch; sadly, President Mugabe did not have the political muscle to deliver.  

President Mugabe, unlike Morgan Tsvangirai, is smart enough to know that Alex Magaisa’s assertion “Mugabe’s reshuffle: the crocodile is running out of water” is rubbish. Crocodiles, unlike fish, can live and thrive out of water. President Mugabe was sleeping “with one eye open”, according to wife, before the reshuffle; after the reshuffle, he will have to sleep with two eyes open because a crocodile out of water is just as dangerous, especially one that knows someone is after it!