Mnangagwa has failed to revive economy and Gono to takeover 2020 - fail too W Mukori

Zanu PF hardliners are in panic mode and for good reasons, the economic meltdown is in overdrive! The country’s de fact local currency the Real Time Gross Settlement Dollar (RTGS$) has been losing more ground in a day than most other currencies in the region loose in a year! Real Time Gross Settlement - what a mouthful. If you do not want a dog, don’t get one! Why burden it with a cursed name. Dog - currency, same thing.

The uncontrolled and dangerous nosedive of the cursed RTGS$ is a barometer of the chaos and carnage in the economy. The RTGS$ was 2.5:1 to the US$ a month ago and has already dropped to 5:1. The price of bread has gone from RTGS$1.8 to RTGS$ 3.5. But it is the sorry state in our health service that underlines the depths of depravity this nation has sunk! 

We all know that doctors have been going to hospitals not to treat patients but to see them die and certify them died. What else could the doctors do without equipment to help in the diagnosis, no drugs, etc. Even big referral hospitals like Parerenyatwa and Mpilo Hospitals have often run out of something as painkillers and bandages! Things are a hell lot worse in the provincial and district hospitals. 

"All the people dying here are covered with blankets and they remain in the wards with patients until their next of kin claims the body. The situation becomes more complex when some bodies spend two to three days unclaimed," a nurse at Chegutu District Hospital told the Herald recently!

The paper said the hospital’s mortuary has been out of service for the last six months but given the advance state of decay and rot in the country’s infrastructure one is spoiled for choice as to why corpses are being left in wards. The mortuary is full/not working/ power cuts/ etc., there is staff shortage/ with wages not even enough cover transport cost, staff have stop going to work/ etc., with shortages of even the most basic things like gloves and washing soap how can anyone handle dead bodies in these conditions, etc. 

It is little wonder that Zanu PF hardliners are in a panic mode and the search for someone to replace Mnangagwa has gone up a gear. The idea is for the party to elect a new party leader at the end of year party congress who can then takeover from Mnangagwa soon thereafter.   

"The latest information as it stands now is that the leadership is reaching a compromise candidate that is seemingly acceptable to all and who is sellable to the international community. We have learnt that Former (Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe) Governor Gideon Gono's name has been touted as one of the people that might be given the task to take over the reigns of power.” Reported Bulawayo 24, quoting an unnamed senior Zanu PF official.

”Gono’s name has been touted because he is seen as a loyal person who is untainted. You will know that the shefs received loans during Gono's time. He is also seen as a person who can bridge the gap between Mugabe's loyalists and the second republic. 

"Another thing that the conversations tried to deal with was the ethnic issues. There was a feeling that the Zezuru clique wants to take over the party again."

Gideon Gono, “untainted”! Here is the man behind the crazy idea of printing money to solving the country’s economic problems. He fuelled inflation to the world record level of 500 billion per cent forcing the country to scrap the Z$. But the very fact that the regime is turning to Gono underlines just how desperate, desperate the party is for someone competent to drag the nation out of this economic hell-hole the regime land us in. 

Even if one was to accept that Gono has learnt his lesson and will never repeat the same or similar foolish mistake of printing money. Gono will probably have a lot more functional brain cells, giving him an IQ just a few points above that of an idiot, than Mnangagwa. Still, I can say here and now that Gono will NOT revive Zimbabwe’s economic. No chance! Never! 

I know Gono, like Mnangagwa before him, will fail to revive the country’s economy for two simple reasons:

1.           Gono’s political handlers and the same as Mnangagwa’s political handlers, the Zanu PF hardliners, will appoint Gono on one condition that he will never do anything to compromise their iron grip on power. The Zanu PF dictatorship complete with its dictatorial powers to rig elections and to use brute force to retain absolute power is not negotiable. As long as Zanu PF continues to enjoy absolute power, the hardliners know their privileged lifestyles are guaranteed; they will hang on to their looted wealth, top it up with fresh loot as the opportunities present themselves and they will never be held to account for the looted wealth and, worse still for many of them, the innocent blood on their hands.

2.           Gono, just like Mnangagwa will be naive enough to believe he can still deliver economic recovery even though the country remains a pariah state ruled by corrupt and vote rigging thugs. No doubt Gono will promise to hold free, fair and credible elections to sell himself as a democrat, knowing fully well his handlers will never allow him to keep that promise. He will also promise zero tolerance on corruption but, again, fail to deliver. “I know realise that corruption is deep-rooted!” was Mnangagwa’s feeble excuse for failing to end corruption.

In 1980 and for a decade or so afterward, the ruling elite and povo were one homogenous group with simple and easily satisfied needs and aspirations. Mugabe and his socialist policies of heavily subsidies education and health care, generous wage increases decreed by Mugabe himself on Workers’ Day, price controls of key commodities, etc. were popular with the Zanu PF leaders and the ordinary people. 

By the early 1990 it was clear Mugabe’s socialist policies were not sustainable and the regime was forced to abandon these policies. The Zanu PF ruling elite; composed of those in the party, government, civil service, the security service, etc. the party relied on to remain in power; flexed their political muscle and forced Mugabe to stop implementing reforms that affected them. This marked the separation of the ruling elite from povo. 

The ruling elite’s economic and political needs have not only grown in leaps and bounds but, more significantly, did so at the expense of the ordinary people. 

The ruling elite have been characteristically very demanding and wasteful. Mugabe seized the former white own farms to give to his demanding cronies and within a decade Zimbabwe lost its position as the breadbasket of the region to a country dependent on food aid. 

Decades of the criminal waste of human and material resources by Zanu PF has resulted in the economic collapse leaving the party with an ever shrinking national cake to feed the ruling elite whose appetite has become insatiable. There have been endless factional dog-eat-dog fight in Zanu PF as member fight over the shrinking wealth. The few winners have amassed unparalleled wealth whilst most of the losers often found themselves living in abject poverty within a few months of being booted out of the party. 

So Zimbabwe is now a divided nation with a few filthy rich ruling elite living cheek by jowl with a filthy poor majority. The ruling elite enjoy absolute power including the carte blanche power to rig elections and the military mighty to use wanton violence to impose their will. The majority have been reduce to no more than medieval serfs forever grovelling to their lords and masters - Zanu PF. 

For the last 39 years Zanu PF ruling elite have managed to use brute force to subdue the masses into accepting the false dichotomy in which they, the poor, have no freedoms, no rights, no dreams, no meaningful vote and even no life as a matter of fate. But with the worsening economic situation it is becoming increasing clear that the people are not going to suffer and die quietly like sheep in a slaughter house. 

Zanu PF ruling elite are hoping that they can string the nation along by replacing Mnangagwa with Gono just as the nation was mollified when the party replaced Mugabe with Mnangagwa. This is just wasting time, time the nation can ill afford to waste given the seriousness of the economic meltdown and the suffering and deaths it is causing.

There is no hope of any meaningful economic recovery as long as Zimbabwe remains a pariah state ruled by corrupt and vote rigging thugs. The Zanu PF ruling elite must give up their dictatorial powers including the powers to rig elections and to loot these powers are offensive and an affront to human dignity and all hopes to build a justice and prosperous Zimbabwe at peace with itself!