“The sources said the party was worried that keeping Mudzuri in the political wilderness would send the wrong message to party members as he held a significant position in the party and that his loss should not be construed to mean that he is now dead and buried,” reported the Daily News.
According to the report, MDC are proposing appointing Mudzuri to the party’s National Executive Committee.
In Africa, it seems once someone is elected into any position of power and authority they immediately go through some form of metamorphosis; transforming them from the ugly caterpillar munching leaves and crawling on its belly into the drop-down-gorgeous butterfly feeding on sweet nectar and honey and floats around gracefully and effortlessly on rainbow wings. To these politicians once a Minister, Prime Minister or President the idea of going back to being an ordinary citizen is as unthinkable as a butterfly going back to being a caterpillar again!
There can be no doubt that political leaders like Robert Mugabe and Joshua Nkomo genuinely shared with the rest of the black majority the sense of injustice and frustration at the exploitation and oppression of backs by the white colonial government. Like the rest of the population the leaders hunger for freedom and dignity for all. But unlike the masses, these leaders were positioning themselves, long before the country finally gained its independence, to takeover power. And nothing, absolutely nothing was to be allowed to stand in their way; not even the basic freedoms and rights of the people, not even the right to life.
The fighting for power intensified after independence with those in power using the State machinery as an extension of the party to be used to promote and protect party interest instead of the common national interests.
Of course no leader in the world wants to be criticised and much less lose power. When the Conservative Party decided to replace Mrs Margret Thatcher as its leader and Prime Minister, the Iron Lady fought like a deranged cat. She did not want to go. The fact that she had been in the top job for an unprecedented 11 years already at the time, made no difference. She did not want to go; period. In democratic countries like the UK leaders become “first amongst equals”, the caterpillar to eat the tender shots and with the brightest colours; yes. But the most important thing is they remain caterpillars like the rest of the populous. They do not lose their common touch. So when they lose power; it is not as shocking to the system as a butterfly turning back into a caterpillar!
In Africa the leaders and the commoners are the same genetically just as caterpillars and butterfly are the same but to compare the extravagant lifestyles of those in power to the daily drudgery of the commoners the differences between them could not be more striking. The ruling elite have commandeering the nation’s entire wealth and resources for their exclusive use and benefit; they have everything and the rest of the population have absolutely nothing. The lack of competition and debate in the one-party state system was bound to result in the criminal waste of resources, brutal repression and tragic human misery as seen in Zimbabwe today.
One-party-dictatorship appealed to leaders like Mugabe because it was the only system that gave me security of tenure in State House. He and his Zanu PF friends have been in power for over thirty years. So yes; as far as keeping Mugabe and his friends in power the dictatorship has worked. The price Mugabe has had to pay for remaining the top dog was the solid rock guarantees he gave to those who would otherwise have challenged him for the position that their respective leadership position was assurance. Except for the unlucky few like Edgar Tekere most of Zanu PF’s founding fathers have too been Minister or some such powerful position for donkey-years. He has been quick to create new posts and super numeral posts in the bloated army, civil service, local government, State owned companies, etc to accommodate the every expanding ruling elite. These individual were appointed regardless of merit or, worse still, whether or not there was really anything for them to do. It was a recipe for certain economic disaster because of the criminal waste of material and human resources through mismanagement and corruption. These two evil got worse and worse as the nation was forced to dig deeper into its reserve to try and satisfy the ever demanding and expanding ruling elite. In 2000, Mugabe short of anything else of value to give his cronies instigated the looting of the white owned farms precipitating the country’s economic melt down!
All this scramble by MDC to create a spare for the deposed Elias Mudzuri, the only one of the MDC’s founding fathers to have lost his leadership position after the party’s congress is exactly what Mugabe has been doing all these years and, worse still, it is exactly what stifled meaningful debate and competition within the country and the party denying the nation the political dynamism to prevent the political rot that destroyed Zimbabwe. Of course the scramble is necessary as it will assure the rest of the leaders in MDC that their on position on the feeding trough is secure – including Tsvangirai’s own position which explains why they all allowed him to remain leader beyond the two terms stipulated by the party’s own constitution.
It is this totally misplaced brotherly love by African leaders for a follow leader that made AU and SADC leaders rally behind tyrants like Mugabe again and again.
Finding Mudzuri a position within MDC may help the later maintain some semblance of the Minister lifestyle he had tasted and clearly enjoyed. What this move will do is make it near impossible for MDC to remove any deadwood within the party now or in the future. What the people of Zimbabwe need desperately is a way out of the hell-hole Mugabe landed us. An MDC full of deadwood is certainly not going to get us out of here!
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And what has Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai done in the last three years since the sham elections of 2008 to ensure the violence that characterise the elections are not repeated? Sadly, nothing! We all know the “a modicum of political and economic stabilisation” he is talking about will disappear like mist once Mugabe's thugs, already deployed throughout the country, step up their terror campaign!
1 comment:
After 31 years in government every little has changed in Zanu PF - most of those in positions of power in 1980, Mugabe, Mujuru, Mutasa, Shiri, etc, etc, are still there. The civil service, army, local government, parastatals have all ballooned to accommodated the ever growing ruling elite whose greed knows no bounds. This is why Zanu PF has become a party of deadwood better known for being incompetent and corrupt. The voters have rejected them and the party has turned to the use of violence and lawlessness to remain in power.
If there was real democracy and competition in MDC then how was it possible that all, except Mudzuri, of the party’s blundering leaders were retained? And, as if to underline the party’s inability to get rid of deadwood, the party leadership is scrambling to bring back the deposed Mudzuri. There is a lot deadwood in MDC just as there is in Zanu PF and, as happened in Zanu PF, MDC has stifled the only means to prune it off – competition.
If MDC should ever rule in Zimbabwe, the best the nation can expect is years of dithering and wasted opportunities. Mark my word!
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