“He (Mugabe)
no longer has a firm grasp of issues, but he tries to be in control by meeting
ministers regularly so that he is up to date with developments. But the energy
and interest are gone; the man is now a shadow of his once vibrant self even
though he still chairs cabinet,” said a senior cabinet minister according to a
Zimbabwe Independent report.
Rigging
the 2013 elections was a job and a half and it left Mugabe thoroughly exhausted;
it was the first elections he has had to rig without having to resort to his
tried and tested method of using violence. He had to find the billions of
dollars required to pay hired crowds to his party rallies, the party youths who
were bussed around to vote, the CIO and other Officials who made it all happen,
NIKUV who corrupted the voters roll, etc. All in all it must have costed
billions of dollars which left the party and nation stone broke.
Irony
of ironies in rigging the elections he inadvertently started an even bigger problem
for himself the economic melt-down. After the reckless spending to finance the
vote rigging the country had no money to finance the economic recovery and the
party’s anti-investor indigenisation rhetoric to win domestic votes had scarred
away all outside investors. So Mugabe was left holding an empty $27 billion
ZimAsset begging bowl but without getting even one dollar to rattle the bowl.
Not even the Chinese would give me even one Yuan!
Holding
that empty begging bowl for nine months would depress a spring chicken and
Mugabe is no spring chicken! I would challenge the cabinet minister, whoever
he/she was, to hold that mocking begging bowl for a month, just one month and
they too will know just how stressful it is.
Even if
Mugabe was to retire tomorrow whoever takes over and has to hold that empty
ZimAsset begging bowl will have the “poisoned” chalice! No wonder the fight to
replace Mugabe has been eerily quiet these last few months; who wants to
inherit a crown of thorns?
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