Sunday, 29 June 2014

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!

8 comments:

Zimbabwe Light said...

@ Rafique 702

Once upon a time teachers were the pillars of the community, respected by young and old for their intellectual prowess. Now any more, look at people like Majongwe and you see a first class idiot! And that is the man teachers elect freely to lead them for the last 12 years too?????!!!!!

Zimbabwe Light said...

@ Muverengi

To start with in a GNU there is no such thing as a ruling party and an opposition party. The dem-ocratic reforms were agreed in the GPA by both Zanu PF and MDC and SADC as the guarantee. Tsvangirai did not table even one meaningful reform throughout the five years of the GNU so it is nonsense to say he "could only put pressure like he truly did".

Mugabe never refused to implement any reforms because no proposals were ever made. How could SADC asked Mugabe to do something when they too know he has not been asked and refused to do anything.


SADC told Tsvangirai to implement the reforms countless time but he did not listen. They warned him not to take part in the elections without the reforms but again he paid no heed.

I have argued for the implementation of the reforms throughout on this site, S W Radio Africa, New Zimbabwe and many other sites. You can see a complete collection of my comments on zimbabwelight.blospot.co.uk.

You ask me if I had been in Tsvangirai's shoes what I would have done. My answer is simple; implement everyone one of the democratic reforms and ensure the new constitution was a truly democratic one! I would have secured the right of every Zimbabwean to a free, fair and credible vote not just for the 2013 elections but for all time!

Now, thanks to Tsvangirai and MDC's breath-taking incompetence, we have to fight for this basic right to a free vote all over again! And, as if that was not bad enough, have to listen to the feeble excuses for the MDC’s betrayal from the party’s supporters’ have no common sense and whose brains are impermeable to reason.

Zimbabwe Light said...

@ Whichfool

It suits your narrative to blame the British for the fact that not even one reform was ever implemented. The truth is no reforms were implemented because of MDC's breath-taking incompetence ; the British had no hand it that.

It is the economic meltdown that is now forcing Mugabe and Zanu PF to implement the reforms.

In their desperate effort to keep poverty at bay the ruling
elite gone into overdrive on the corruption and looting. These are the cancerous tumours that must be removed or the economy will never ever recover.

Mugabe does not have the political will to carry out this life
or death operation. How can he; given that he is himself the commander in chief and chief beneficiary of the corruption and looting.


To ask Mugabe to end the corruption and looting is like
asking a crocodile to pull out his own teeth. For 34 years Mugabe has promised to end the political patronage system, the root cause of the mismanagement and
corruption, but instead the system has grown stronger.



The truth is the mismanagement and corruption were economically unsustainable and that is the reality Mugabe has now to deal with. The only way to end this economic meltdown is for the country to slash and burn the Zanu PF political patronage system – i.e. implement the democratic reforms.


It is not necessary for me or anyone else to apply pressure on Mugabe and Zanu PF to accept reforms, the economic meltdown is do that. When party grandees like the late
Nathan Shamuyarira are living a pauper's life it is clear that poverty, rot and decay has reached the inner most core of the party itself. A party with a rotten core will not stand for long. .

Zimbabwe Social Democrats can see that the Zanu PF is in terminal decline and our main concern now is to ensure the tyrannical regime does not drag the nation into the abyss with it!

Zimbabwe Light said...

For years the Zanu PF government has denied it is the one behind the country’s economic problems, preferring to blame the West, especially the targeted sanctions. But since the July 2013 rigged elections the economic meltdown has taken a very serious turn forcing the regime to admit its own role in the economic failing. For the first time the regime has admitted its youth empowerment policy has been a failure.

"Many youths and entrepreneurs have started businesses which have eventually not operated sustainably," admitted Youth and Empowerment deputy minister, Mathias Tongofa.

"Many borrowed money from the funding pools which were made available, but to date less than 70% has been repaid. Is it because most of the projects had not been well thought out or these youths just went away and squandered the money because they do not have an idea of what is supposed to be done."

The Zimbabwe economy is in serious trouble and there a crying need to address the country’s long standing serious problems such as corruption. The regime is struggling to find enough money to pay the bloated civil service let alone to fund any more youth empowerment projects. So the deputy Minister’s remarks are designed to give the impression that the regime is doing something to save millions of dollars by cutting back on its youth empowerment projects when there was no money allocated. Meanwhile the regime continues to do nothing about the rampant corruption in high places.

The youth empowerment projects is a gimmick to draw attention away the regime’s continued reluctance to do something to end the country’s rampant corruption problems.

The regime is fooling no one because the economic meltdown will continue until the country’s underlying economic problems are dealt with!

Zimbabwe Light said...

"We must set a clear direction where this country is going, an economic plan that will make industry and farms work," Tsvangirai said.

"The issue in Zimbabwe is not economic but political; we need a political plan. No one is going to invest in a country with a 90-year-old leader. Mujuru or Mnangagwa are far much better than him (Mugabe).”

So that is the sum total of this buffoon’s political plan to allow Mujuru or Mnangagwa to takeover after Mugabe. The fact that both Mujuru and Mnangagwa have been part and parcel of the political system that has destroyed the nation’s economy and systematically denied the people their basic freedoms and rights including the right to a free vote and the right to life itself are not important.

Of course given his shallow understanding of the issues at stake, it is easy to see why even now Tsvangirai still does not understand what the democratic reforms are about let alone why he should have implemented them during the GNU.

“He (Mugabe) must graciously retire now and leave this to others. Zvinotovanani (it's far much better)," said Tsvangirai.

Never mind the tyrant, let others deal with him, you Tsvangirai should go back to Buhera and herd goats and stop being a distraction to those seeking to end the Zanu PF dictatorship! You had the best chance the nation has had so far to end the dictatorship and you wasted it and now do us a favour and shut the fcuk up!

Zimbabwe Light said...

@ Rafique 702
The economic hardships have no respect for rank. Chihuru went to inspect the pass out parade of new Police recruits instead they watched him pass out. His shoes were too tight; even the Police Commissioner cannot afford a new pair shoes these days. As for the new recruits they will be lucky to get their monthly pay as for the uniforms they will have to hope they will get something from the illegal road blocks!

Mugabe is dragging the nation deeper and deeper into this mess. Of course there is a limit to how much suffering the people can endure before hell-breaks loss. When it does he and his Zanu PF cronies will face the same fate as tyrants the world over have faced. What worries me is the tragic chaos that often follows these events!

Zimbabwe Light said...

There are as many as 300 000 school drop out in Zimbabwe today.

The last ten years, at least, things have been terrible for the Zimbabwean children. So the 7 to 17 year old are a lost generation!

There is no logical reason why we have allowed ourselves to get into such a mess and for it to have lasted 34 years, other than our laissez faire attitude. Well we have paid dearly for our mistake and we continue to pay for a long time yet!

Zimbabwe Light said...

More than 220 000 offer letters issued in the past 15 years to A1 model new farmers are set to be nullified and replaced by new tenure permits to be launched by President Robert Mugabe later this week.
The annoying thing is the regime is turning on the heat on these new farmers to make the farms productive at a time when everything else in the economy is moving in the opposite direction. The regime has itself failed to address the many problems including the rampant corruption, making sure there is funding, guaranteed supply of electricity, good infrastructure like roads and rail services, etc. And yet the regime expects the farmers to do well regardless.
If the farmers fail to deliver they lose the farm. The regime has failed to deliver on its mass prosperity promise delivering mass poverty instead and yet it is still in power. There is a dictatorship for you!