Zanu PF infighting is proof the patronage system has broken down and the party is collapsing!

The infighting in Zanu PF is to be expected and is set to get even worse. The party is a mesh-mash of some of the most mentally challenged individuals on earth with no principle or common sense who joined the party and government to gratify their insatiable appetite for power and wealth. 

Unlike the American President who is accountable to other arms of government and ultimately to the American voters come elections; Mugabe has enjoyed absolute power to appoint whoever he pleased regardless of their performance and reward as he pleased. Mugabe has used political patronage to buy and reward his party followers' loyalty to him and the party's strangle hold on political power. 

The trouble with political patronage is that is always results in mismanage and corruption and these are the two cancers that have destroyed the Zimbabwe economy. The falling wealth has meant Mugabe had less and less to redistribute amongst his cronies. 

The story of the former Minister for a total of 25 years and Zanu PF grandee, the late Nathan Shamuyarira; dying in abject poverty underlined just how little of the super-glue Mugabe has left now. The party, aware many people would be visiting his home, painted his house to hide the years of neglect, rot and decay and patched the potholes on the road to his Harare house the afternoon he died. 

Last year, for the first time since Mugabe gave the farms seized from the white-owners to his cronies, the tyrant was forced to stop paying them the generous farming subsidies. The regime is going one step further and has been threatening to take away unproductive farms from the cronies. 

The seized white farms is the one thing of value that most of cronies have and so taking away the farms will hurt them the most, particularly when they will have no chance of finding a job given the 85% plus unemployment rate.

The recovery of the agricultural sector is one of pre-requisite for economic recovery and so Mugabe had no choice but to bite the bullet. Unproductive land must be taken away and given to those able to put it back into productive use. To do nothing and allow the economic meltdown to continue was worse because the ensuing poverty affects the masses, the cronies, party grandees, everyone! 

Still taking away the seized farms from the Zanu PF cronies is tantamount to cutting them lose to vent their anger at Mugabe and the party. And when they compare their daily hardships of the pauper's life with the luxuries of Mugabe's "Blue Roof" mansion life, they will have plenty to be very angry about!  

The infighting in Zanu PF will bound to grow into a raging inferno that will destroy the party and good riddance too. 

Mugabe and Zanu PF were the authors of Zimbabwe’s destruction; all they know is how to destroy and know nothing about creating. The tasks of political and economic reconstruction will have to be entrusted to others and not Mugabe and Zanu PF!

After 15 years of pretending farming was a great success, Nhema finally admit the Zanu PF cronies "are doing nothing on those farms"!

“If you do not make the best out of what you have, then how can we as a nation better the lives of our people? You were provided with the land, given equipment and inputs, but some of you are doing nothing on those farms,” said Minister Nhema.

The regime has poured billions of dollars in buying the equipment and inputs for these good-for-nothing farmers year after year for the last 15 years and yet year after years they have failed to produce anything. This was economically unsustainable and the chickens have finally come home to roost!

“You cannot even afford to grow the right crops suitable for your region. So what are we doing? Can we go anywhere like that?” Asked the Minister rhetorically! Of course there is nothing else to be done here other than taking the farms back.

The greatest irony of this situation is that government has already ended the subsidies on which most of these Zanu PF cronies were now totally dependent throwing them into poverty. The prospect of now being forced off the farms, with no prospect of getting a job, must be a nightmare comparable only to that the white farmers themselves faced when they were forced off the farms. The one was forced off the farm by greed and now the greed are being forced off the farm by their own incompetence!

As my late mother would say, "Munda hauzvirimi!" (Farms do not farm themselves!) It is only right that farms should be given to those who are best able to use this key asset to good use for the good of the nation.

It was MDC's incompetence and not "violence" that gave Mugabe victory in 2013 as Raftopoulos claims!

What is Brian Raftopoulos wittering about, "Zanu PF’s and Mugabe’s overwhelming electoral ‘victory’ in July 2013 was the result of a combination of the continuing legacy of firmly inscribed memories of post-colonial violence, Zanu PF’s persistent legitimacy from the liberation struggle, the declining fortunes of the opposition MDCs, the combination of coercion and patronage by the ruling party in context of a reconstructed political economy, regional solidarity for the ‘party of liberation'!" All these are historic excuses that had a marginal effect on the outcome of the July 2013 elections whilst other others are in fact pure nonsense!

Yes Mugabe has often relied on violence to win elections, the wanton violence during the presidential run-off elections in 2008 was the worse in the country’s history. In the 2013 elections Mugabe knew the whole world was watching him like an eagle and therefore he did not use violence. To say that he did is a complete misrepresentation of the facts!

Mugabe won the 2013 elections because he had total control of the Police, Courts, ZEC and all the other state institution who all played key roles in the execution of his vote rigging plan. Mugabe had the Israeli company Nikuv corrupt the voters roll, for example, which enable him to deny nearly a million voters, mainly MDC supporters, on the day the vote because their names were deliberately posted in another Polling area other than that they expected to vote in.

Mugabe needed ZEC to turn a blind eye to his failure to produce a voters roll before the elections and the commission’s continued cooperation in hiding the voters roll, the smoking gun to the vote rigging.

Mugabe has also used the failure to produce a voters roll to cover up the hundreds of thousands of his own supporters who were bussed in to vote on voting day. The whole world saw the bussed in voters and the Police did not lift a finger to investigate!

Of course Mugabe would have never blatantly rigged the elections if MDC had carried out the democratic reforms as agreed in the GPA!

For Brian to dismiss MDC’s breath-taking incompetence in failing to implement not even one reform as “declining fortunes of the opposition MDCs” only goes to show how he has failed to comprehend the importance of the reform.

It is nonsense to suggest SADC sided with Mugabe and Zanu PF out of “regional solidarity for the ‘party of liberation'!" How many times did SADC leaders tell Tsvangirai and his MDC friends to follow the GPA roadmap and implement the reforms and how many times did MDC ignore their advice?

In a recent interview, Samuel Sipepa Nkomo, MDC leader, admitted that SADC and the international community advised MDC not to take part in the July 2013 elections without the reforms. Both SADC and the international community deserted MDC in sheer frustration when MDC once again ignored the advice.

I believe the international community would like to help Zimbabwe get out of this political and economic mess Mugabe has landed us in but only if we, Zimbabweans, can demonstrate that we are now serious about getting out of the mess. MDC’s breath-taking incompetence showed that we are not serious and when people like Brian Raftopoulos are not helping us address this very serious shortcoming by sweeping it under the carpet!

Sum total of a united opposition is weaker than the individual because they are stronger opposing than reinforcing forces at play!

The question of whether or not an opposition coalition is the answer to ending the Zanu PF dictatorship is an important question. Thank you, Tshepo Mabalane Mabalane, for starting of the debate.

“The split (of opposition coalition) was caused by the limited drive to entrench a single narrative of a homogenous Zimbabwe with one problem(Mugabe)  yet the MDC was a conglomeration of groups with different interests but had in common the need to counter a ZANU hegemony,” you said. That is a mouthful. I would put is differently.

The realisation by the opposition parties that the as long as the stand a multitude of parties each too small and weak to take Mugabe and Zanu PF alone they had no chance of ever defeating Zanu PF is the force pulling the opposition to force coalition. There is another force at play here too, each party or individual within the party is keen to maintain their own distinct identity so that they can strike out and emerge out of the vanquished Zanu PF as the dominant party/individual.  

Consider the first as a gravitation force, pulling all the different bodies together and the later as an electrical repulsive force of bodies with the same charge.  As any student of physics will tell you; which force will dominate with dependent of a number of thing but for the sake of simplicity the greater the mass to charge ration the greater the gravitational force to electrostatic repulsion.

Zimbabwe’s politicians right across the political divide are simpleton and as shallow as a petri dish; they have no principles, no ideology, no policies nothing beyond their burning desire to be the top dog to get on the gravy train which is the sum total of what holding public office mean to them.

Take Tsvangirai for example, he never had a clue what were the democratic changes the country needed although he has been leading a party elected on a ticket to bring democratic change which is why MDC did not implement even one reform. Even to this day he still does not have a clue what these reforms are about.

So if one was to compare Tsvangirai to other world leaders like President Barak Obama whilst the latter is a man of substance, has gravitas, a one foot diameter ball of sold lead; Tsvangirai is a one foot diameter helium balloon, let go and he will float into obviation.  

Our helium balloon MDC leaders were united throughout the GNU by the prospect of defeating Zanu PF; but, true to their no-substance nature, failed to see that this would not be achieved without implementing the removes. So when Mugabe rigged the elections and thus ending the little gravitation force the electrostatic forces came to the fore with a vengeance! How someone like Tendai Biti could say Mugabe, a corrupt and murderous tyrant is “better” than Tsvangirai only goes to show just how shallow Biti is.

Introduce an electric charge on lead balls and they will not move. Do the same thing with helium balloons and they will fly apart!

Zanu and Zapu had the same problems as the opposition now have. Mugabe has managed to keep Zanu PF united these last 34 years because he was in power and used political patronage to glue the helium balloons in the party together. The country has been striped bear of all loot and without it Mugabe is now finding it tough to stop the party splitting apart!

I know many Zimbabweans are desperate to end this Mugabe tyranny and have again and again sort the unity of the opposition as the answer. We need to think outside the box; instead of trying to knock Mugabe off his patch with several helium balloons we should try using one water balloon. What we have lacked is just one opposition leader of substance; uniting 5 or 10 leaders has not worked as the sum total of the united opposition has often been less than the individual contribution because they have opposed more than they have reinforced!

As a people we are more easily impressed by quantity and never see quality, we are ourselves intellectual featherweights and therefore man of substance mean nothing to us!

ZEC says Mavedzebge can get single constituent voters roll and not complete roll.

Last month constitutional lawyer Justice Alfred Mavedzenge applied for High Court ruling compelling ZEC to make the voters’ roll public. ZEC has finally responded saying individuals have no right to ask for a complete national voters roll but only for a single constituency roll.

Mugabe and ZEC can be assured that there will be 210 patriotic Zimbabweans who will follow Mavedzenge's foot steps and make sure the complete roll is available! The regime has nowhere left to hide the voters roll! 

Mugabe rigged the 2013 July elections and the voters roll is the smoking gun of the rigged vote. Mugabe and ZEC have given all manner of excuses why the voters roll has never been released but the regime must now know that this was one rigged election it is not going to get away with. 

The truth and nothing but the truth about the 2013 rigged elections will come out and those responsible for this treasonous act will be answer for it! 

Nhema tells Mugabe of the "ghastly" 250 000 or 80% school drop out rate in Zimbabwe

According to UNICEF, school attendances plummeted from about 80% to around 20%. The figures were confirmed by Youth and Empowerment minister Francis Nhema at a gathering attended by Mugabe.

“The total of those failing examinations added to those dropping out due to these (socio-economic) circumstances is in the range of between 250,000 to 300,000,” said the Minister.

“This number, Your Excellency, over a five year period, translates to between a million to a million-and-a-half. It is too ghastly to contemplate.”

Of course Mugabe has contemplated these ghastly realities, after all these things are already happening and the situation has not developed on the last month but over decades, and Mugabe decided to hang on to power regardless the social-economic consequences!

What Minister Nhema should have asked Mugabe is how much longer did he thought this ghastly situation could go on and, worse still, what the social and economic cost would be?  

The complete collapse of the education system is just one of the indicators of the nightmare scenario the nation now faces for failing to arrest the economic meltdown that started in 2000. In the six year period 2002 to 2008 alone the Zimbabwe economy shrunk by a staggering 84% sending millions into a life of abject poverty and forcing millions leave the country in economic despair. 

Surely Mugabe and his cronies must now realise that 80% school dropout, 85% unemployment, at least 85% of houses in cities and towns have no running water for a day or more a week, etc.; these are all ghastly figures. And they are socially, morally, politically, economically and every other way unsustainable! It is madness that the situation has been allowed to get this bad but it is sheer folly to allow this to continue even one more day.

Mugabe has failed to rule the country, the ghastly social-economic indicators testify to this; and he must now go before he drags the nation into abyss! The single most important task before this nation is to get this tyrant to go; not in 2018, now!

Slogans are the chants with which to rouse the crowd or is it brainwash!

Do you know that if Zimbabweans had learnt at those infernal all-night vigils (pungwe) to question “Why, what has XYZ done?” instead of automaton “Kill him! (Pasi naye!)” to the speaker’s repeated chant “Death to XYZ! (Pasi naXYZ!)” Zimbabwe would have been spared the horrors of Gukurahundi and we would not be in the political and economic hell-hole we now find ourselves?

 Slogans have become the open vitriolic chants with which to rouse the rally audience; no political speech will be complete without it. “Pamberi neZanu PF!” (Forward with Zanu PF) Mugabe would always start his rally speeches, punctuating each word with his clinched fist. He loved slogans.

“Pamberi!” the crowd would answer, punching the air with their clinched fists.

Mugabe would work the crowd by repeated the slogan an few time, shouting louder with each repeat.  He would then finish with “Pasi nasingadi kubatana navamwe!” (Death to those who do not want unity!” bringing his clinched fist emphatically down.

“Pasi navo!” the crowd would answer, bringing their fists, mechanically, down too!  

The people should have asked, as befit the free, justice and prosperous Zimbabwe they all thought they had fought for, where “forward” are we going? Because 34 years after independence few Zimbabweans can say this is where they wanted Zimbabwe to be! After being misled by Mugabe and Zanu PF one would think the people learnt their lesson. Sadly, no!

For the last 15 years MDC supporters have been chanting with “Chinja! Chinja!” (Change! Change!)” without a clue what exactly they wanted to be changed. If the party leaders had implemented the democratic changes the party had promised and which the party’s name stood for then the 2013 elections would have been free and fair. Zimbabwe would have a democratically elected government and not another Zanu PF imposition following rigged elections.

Tsvangirai, Biti, Ncube and all the other MDC leaders did not implement even one democratic change although they had five years to do so because they were side tracked by the trappings of power, in the first place. Second, they are breathtakingly incompetent. The MDC supporter had failed to get them to implement any changes because they did not have clue what changes were required (many still do not have a clue even with the benefit of hindsight). They had all chanted “Chinja! Chinja! Chinja!” without knowing what they wanted changed!

“Renewal” and “grand coalition” are the new kids on the block these days. The “renewal” is headed by Biti and Mangoma and a number of the same corrupt and incompetent MDC leaders. What is new there? The grand coalition is to be composed of recycled failed leaders from MDC and Zanu PF. What is so grand in that!

Conclusion

If we are serious about building a democratic Zimbabwe in which the electorate is expected to cast an informed and meaningful vote and to hold those in power to account; then we must end culture of empty slogans geared to produce a naïve and gullible electorate.

The Pungwes of pre-independence should have prepared the people for a free, democratic and prosperous Zimbabwe. Instead the nights were wasted in mindless slogans and brainwashing; laying the foundation of the corrupt and oppressive autocracy that has ruled and ruined the nation these last 34 years!

VP Mujuru ambush Chinese VP Yuanchao to beg as a year on the ZimAsset begging bowl remains mockingly empty!

Vice President Joyce Mujuru, with three ministers in tow, met China’s Vice President Li Yuanchao; ZimAsset begging bowl in hand. The Chinese leader is on four and five day state visit to Zambia and Tanzania respectively. His whistle-stop in Harare was so brief he never left Harare International Airport, which where VP Mujuru and her begging party went to meet him.

It is now nearly a year since Mugabe launched his ZimAsset economic recovery plan and still the begging bowl has remained mockingly empty! The regime has begged from the West, from China and has even tried begging from other developing countries but failed to raise even a dollar. The situation is now so desperate the regime is now resorting to ambushing visitors like the Chinese VP!

ZimAsset was Zanu PF’s flagship economic recovery plan in its 2013 election manifesto with a very ambitious $27 billion price tag. Mugabe was confident the plan would be oversubscribed; he expected the West would be accept his election victory – of which he was very confident of, his vote rigging plans were water tight and guaranteed to delivery victory for him and his party – and would want to kiss and make up. And what better way for them to do that than contribute generously to his ZimAsset fund!

Mugabe was genuinely shocked when the West refuse to endorse his rigged elections as free and fair and, worse still, would not contribute even a dollar to his ZimAsset. But, the cunning man he is, Mugabe had plan B.

Mugabe was so sure that his Chinese friends would only be too keen to shame the West by bankrolling his programme. Mugabe even mentioned that the Chinese would oversubscribe and pay $30 billion even; that was in September 2013.  By October the regime was saying China would pay $10 billion; in early November it dropped to $3 billion.

Fininance Minister Patrick Chinamasa was flying in and out of Harare and Beijing like a yo-yo; with Mugabe telling him not to comeback without the money and the Chinese wait, they are thinking about it. By the end of November 2013 Chinamasa had whittled the amount the Chinese would pay to $400 million. A few weeks later the Chinese Ambassador to Zimbabwe dropped the bombshell, China would not be paying a single Yuan to the ZimAsset fund.

“Let’s be careful about vana Ali Baba ava. They will cheat us and make us run and run and expect and expect, nothing, nothing, nothing will come our way.” Mugabe responded, at the Zanu PF Congress in December 2013, in sheer exasperation. 

Chinamasa was sent on a charm offensive to the West but after six months the West has remained decidedly unimpressed and hence it is back to the Chinese again!

“There is a lot that we feel China can also try to look at and work with us so that this (ZimAsset) blueprint becomes a reality because it is a programme that the generality of this country is looking forward to,” VP Mujuru begged the Chinese visitor.

“For years since independence, we have been failing to deliver fully . . . yes we got the land, but the land has not given the full results which the Head of State and our party and his people are waiting to see,” explained Mai Mujuru.

Her Chinese visitor was not one to be so easily fooled. Zanu PF has failed to deliver, period! The only reason the Chinese are unwilling to contribute to the ZimAsset fund is that they know the regime will waste the money through mismanagement and corruption. They will never get a penny of that money back; the regime is up to its eyes in debt already and none of the debtors have ever been paid.

The Chinese know fully well the money will be wasted but are nonetheless considering bankrolling the regime on condition they are granted concessions to Zimbabwe’s minerals and the minerals are given as collateral security.  

“Securitisation of minerals is one way of financing things; however it brings a lot of risks,” said the outgoing World Bank economist to Zimbabwe, Mrs Nadia Piffaretti, a week ago. “It’s not an easy solution because you might end up giving away more than you are getting. It is really not advisable at your (Zimbabwe’s) development stage.

“You might just take away the future of your children.”

Of course the Chinese do not give a damn that Mugabe is sell Zimbabwe piece by piece for the classical piece of calico cloth and a handful of beads blacks sold their own kith and kin for to slave traders. What the Chinese are concerned about is whether the bailout will be enough to save the Mugabe regime at least long enough for them to recoup the bailout money.

The Chinese know that after the Mugabe regime collapse whatever government that comes in will not honour an deals that blatantly took away the nation’s future.

The Chinese must know that the bailout will do nothing to stop the mismanagement and corruption, the two cancers that have been eating away at the country’s economy and have grown so big they are killing it. Second, the bailout will do nothing to attract foreign investors who are scared of having their investments seized given the Zanu PF regime’s indigenisation policies.

In short the Chinese bailout, if they are foolish enough to give it, will only delay the economic collapse by a year or two at most. When the economy collapses it will take down this Mugabe dictatorship with it; hence all this frantic begging by Mai Mujuru to keep the economy tottering on. Will one or two years be enough for the Chinese recoup their bailout money?

What the Chinses VP and his government must know is that Zimbabwe will never honour any deals selling away the country’s future! 

Old dirty habits die hard: Mugabe insults the West and begs them for ZimAsset funds in one breath!

Mugabe says the 2013 elections were free, fair and credible and the west must now engage with his regime.

"Despite this positive verdict, our detractors have remained trapped in their negative posture," Mugabe said. "We call on them to review their position and join us in re-establishing constructive relations.”

This is the thing about tyrants and dictators; after decades of absolute power and dictating to everyone they think they can dictate to the whole world. They become so engrossed in their own inflated ego they fail to see the truth even when they nose in rubber into.

Mugabe is wittering after the West being “trapped in their negative posture” and thus stopping they joining his regime in “constructive relations”. He cannot see that even countries like China who have had nothing else other than a positive relationship with him- indeed it was China that has stood form to stop UN sanction being imposed of Zimbabwe – are themselves backing away him.

China has pointedly refused to contribute not even a single Yuan into Mugabe’s ZimAsset begging bowl. Mugabe was so sure China would; initial he said China would contribute $30 billion only for the amount to be revised down to $ 10 billion, $3 billion, $400 million and then not even one Yuan!

Mugabe is desperate for foreign aid; the national economy has been in Intensive Care Unit since the July 2013 rigged elections and without the foreign aid injection it is not coming out of there. And therefore there would not have been a stronger statement of its “constructive relation” with Mugabe than for the Chinese to have contributed a significant amount to Mugabe’s ZimAsset begging bowl. They did not even contribute a Yuan for Mugabe to rattle the bowl with.

Mugabe has repeatedly said he did not need the West “Keep your England and I will keep my Zimbabwe!” he said. Pride comes before the fall; he is so desperate for cash it is him who sending his Minister to England begging bowl in one hand and hat in the other asking the British to “join” him and give generously! Whatever next; an apology from these “trapped detractors” and a signed blank cheque for him to fill in the amount he pleases!

The cold reality is the ZimAsset will remain mockingly empty and the economic will continue to get worse until Mugabe resigns. He can go now or dilly–dally about it but he can be sure of one thing the pressure for him to go will increase with each passing day! The longer he delays his departure the greater the pressure; the greater the pressure the higher the chance the whole thing will simply explode in his face!

WB says Zimbabwe's economy continue to fall: Mugabe must go or he will crash the economy!

The WB, in its latest Global Economic Prospects report, revised Zimbabwe’s economic growth for 2014 downwards from close to 4 percent to 2 percent, forecasting a further slide to 1 percent in 2015.

The international financial institution projected that economic growth would subsequently sink to 0.6 percent, warning of the possible danger of the growth rate turning negative in 2017 if no meaningful reforms are carried out to attract general investment.

Mugabe knew that his reckless spending to win the 2013 elections at all cost risked bankrupting the already weak and frail national economy. But the thought giving up power was simply unthinkable for him and so he too that risk. When the national economy has been in intensive care unit from the minute he was declared the winner.

He pulled off the vote rigging but rigging economic recovery has proven to be a bridge-too-far. He has tried to all his usual tricks but the begging bowl for the ZimAsset recovery plan has remained mockingly empty; not even his old ally China would contribute. His racist rhetoric and the real threat that he would allow his cronies to loot any foreign owned businesses – many of them have failed to make money from the looted white-owned farms and they are as poor as church mice and are therefore desperate for fresh loot – has scared away would be foreign investors.

Without fresh financial injection the national economy is not coming out of the ICU. With nether the donors nor investors showing an interest there is no foreign money coming into Zimbabwe. The economy has only one way to go – continue with its nose-dive.

What the people of Zimbabwe have to realise here is that Mugabe may admit the economy is in trouble but he will NEVER EVER give up power. It is not in the DNA of tyrants and dictators to give up political power. People will have to pressure him to give up power or he will drag the nation to the deepest recesses of hell and still hang on tenaciously to the reins of power regardless economic cost, the human misery and lost human lives.

Zanu PF has been and failed mobile-phone farmers are back to escape looming pauper's life!

Energy Minister Dzikamai Mavhaire appoints a bus load of political has been to ZESA and its nine subsidiary company boards.

When pressed by the media to explain why politicians dominated the ZESA boards, Mavhaire said to question him is to question Mugabe’s authority. Thank God the years of absolute power are drawing to a close!

Most, if not all, of these Zanu PF "has been" have held high positions in the past but made a complete fcuk up as usual. They were finally put out to pasture on million-dollar farms seized from the white-owners but made yet another complete fcuk up of that too.

Ever since they took over the farms the nation has had to subsidise them through soft loans and grants - most of which they still failed to pay back. The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe has had to write of $2 billion loaned out to these mobile-phone farmers. With Zimbabwe's economic meltdown, government was finally forced to wean these farmers, there were no soft loans or grants paid out this year.

So many of the mobile-phone farmers are now destitute! The saw just how poor and destitute the late Shamuyarira was and they panicked. Anyone who is anyone in Zanu PF in being overwhelmed by all these "has beens" desperate to be taken back into formal employment or they too will be a pauper like Shamuyarira and, of course millions of ordinary Zimbabweans.

“ZESA is just a microcosm of what ZANU PF has always done, and that is looking after themselves and their friends. On display yet again is the ruling party’s culture of cronyism," said Elton Mangoma. 

He is spot on, none of these "has beens" will help end ZESA's chronic problems of mismanagement and corruption. Indeed they are there to add to the problems; they will be expecting ZESA to get them a car, house and the usual generous allowances. 

There is so much mismanagement and corruption a national economy can bear, the Zimbabwe economy is in a terminal nose dive because it cannot bear the heavy burden any more. As long as Mugabe remains in State House the national economy will continue to get worse and worse. Mugabe will be forced to admit failure and resign; there is simply no other way out! 

Who will guard the Zanu PF tyrants? that is the question of our time!

“If we had a responsible Government, and ruling party we wouldn’t need more prison officers.” Dube was commenting to my article “Gearing up for brutal repression”.

 

In the article was decrying the Mugabe regime’s failure to come up with measures to address the country’s worsening economic situation which, in turn, is causing real suffering and hardship on the populous. Of course there is a limit to how much suffering the people can be expected to endure in silence before they demand to be heard raising the spectre of serious social unrest such as rioting or worse.

 

Sadly it is the social unrest and not the economic meltdown that is causing it that the regime is keen as mustard to deal with. It is already beefing up the state’s brutal repression machinery – 650 new Police graduates, 11 000 Prison Guard recruits and a $200 million state of the art Spy University for the CIO – to ruthless silence and punish all criticism and protests!

 

What Dube raises here in the age old question “Who will guard the guardians?”

 

The Roman author, Juvenal, posed the same question but in a more social setting of the home. Since wives cannot be trusted, he argued, keeping them under guard was no solution because the guards cannot be trusted either.

 

In the interest of gender balance; Juvenal would have said the same about husbands. Add the fact that sexual attraction is no longer confined to the opposite sex and the social problem assumes yet another dimension of complexity!

 

What we are talking about here is not wives or husbands we cannot trust but rulers, national guardians. The Greek Philosopher, Plato, did put a lot of thinking into who should be considered suitable to be guardian, ruler, and having carefully selected the ruler then his view was the ruled should be able to trust the rulers to behave properly and it was absurd to suppose that the rulers should require oversight.

  

Mugabe and his Zanu PF thugs have never behaved properly and therefore they are certainly not what Plato would have ever considered to be suitable rulers.

 

Socrates, another Greek Philosopher and thinker said, “From intoxication we said that they (guardians) must abstain. For a guardian is surely the last person in the world to who it is allowed to get drunk and not know where on earth he is.”

Socrates was talking of alcoholic intoxication in Zimbabwe Mugabe and his Zanu PF dictatorship cabal have been drunk on something even more potent and highly addictive – political power. And for the last 34 years Mugabe has absolute power - power in its most potent and undiluted form.

 

The Police, Prison, CIO, etc.; these are all important State institution necessary to keep law and order, enforce the law and to punish those found guilty of breaking the law but all these are only valid in a society where the rulers, untrusted with the powers to direct and control these State institutions behave properly and for the common good. In a dictatorship such as we have in Zimbabwe the rulers do not behave properly and the only law that matters is that the rulers are above the law and do as they please.

Mugabe has politicised State institution like the Police, Prison, Judiciary, public media, etc. so that instead of them serving the common good they now serve keep him and his cronies in power at all cost! Mugabe has used the Police to silence his critics and the public at large. Since his regime has failed to address the underlying causes of the economic meltdown he knows the populous will become more restless. His response is not to do something to end the economic meltdown but rather to silence public protest against the worsen sufferings.

 

So the simple reply to Dube is that in this Mugabe regime, Zimbabwe does not a responsible government. It is up to the people, the electorate, to ensure that the Mugabe regime is remove from power and replaced with a democratically elected government the nation can trust to behave properly.

 

As for the answer to the age old question “Who will guard the guardians?” The answer has to be the people, the electorate. So Zimbabwe is in this political and economic mess today because the Zimbabwe electorate have been naïve and gullible, at best; what good is having a guard if he or she does not have a clue of the task before them. 

Ex MDC Minister, Gorden Moyo, resigns from party "full of confusion" triggering another chorus from the howling monkeys!

Former MDC-T Minister, Gorden Moyo resigns from the party saying the party had betrayed the people and is “full of confusion”.

“An angel of darkness has visited our party. We have been raped by a demon and become like the Tower of Babel – full of confusion,” said Gorden Moyo.

The single most important failure by MDC was failing to implement the reforms. Now this was not a one day event but a process that took five years to unfold. Was Mr Moyo fast asleep throughout those five years and has just woken up now?

MDC leaders have shown throughout the years but most of all during the GNU that they are corrupt and breathtakingly incompetent.

The infighting in MDC that first broke out in 2005 ending with the formation of Ncube led faction and is going on today which leading to yet another breakaway faction forming are just another manifestation of MDC's breath-taking incompetence.

“We are pushing a self-destruction button,” said Mr Moyo. “Given circumstances in the current context, I find it difficult to operate in such an environment where we fight friends and not foes."

MDC leaders have always fought each other and never the common enemy because they have never agreed on any common goals and interests. 

The only reason the infighting was not so pronounced during the GNU years is that they all had their snout in the trough; too busy feeding to fight. When Mugabe kicked out MDC leaders off the gravy train after the 2013 elections they now had all the time in the world to tear each other to pieces over nothing! 

Mr Moyo said he was resigning from both the MDC faction led by Tsvangirai and from the renewal group.

“He only joined the party just before the formation of the inclusive Government ... (but) that’s the normal life of a party,” was the response Nelson Chamisa. Chamisa has always maintained MDC was “the party of excellence!” Is this him admit that it was just an empty and meaningless slogan!

Sadly this is not a gun fight but a verbal fight; the former produces a winner and, most important of all for the nation, peace. On the other hand, the verbal fight of the howling monkeys produces lots and lots of noise; no articulated points of view just an endless string of empty promises and meaningless slogans. Each side will always claim victory and although they never say what exactly they have won. Each side will then go out to rally their supporters in preparation for the next howling contest!

Zimbabwe is facing the worst economic crisis ever and, if the nation does not act quickly and decisively, the nation can easily tip over and serious social unrest in the form of riots or worse. We desperately need to focus our minds on this threat and finding the way out but we cannot even hear ourselves think not with the howling monkeys in full voice!