Professor Stephen Chan, of
world politics at the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University
of London says VP Mnangagwa will have to make his bid for power this year
because he too, like Mugabe, is growing old.
“If Mnangagwa is going to make
a bid it really has to be soon, probably in 2016, as younger factions can only
gather steam as he grows older. A man in his 70s succeeding a man in his 90s is
not going to look like generational change,” Professor Chan told the Daily News.
“But using the war veterans and
his military contacts is also looking backwards to support from the past. The
problem is that the G40 has no real ideas about the future either. The tragedy
of Zimbabwe is that no one has a plan for the future. A nation that thinks and
fights as if it were the past will just continue to live in the past as the
world moves into the future.”
Professor Chan is stop about
the G40 having “no real ideas about the future either,” and what better proof
of that then the faction’s insistence that Robert Mugabe, regardless of his
advance age at 92 years of age and ill health but worst of all with his
pathetic record as a corrupt, incompetent and murderous tyrant, must remain in
power to serve his current full term but must be the party’s candidate for the
2018 elections too. Grace Mugabe, the G40 faction’s undeclared candidate to
succeed Mugabe, told the Zanu PF one-million man march rally that Robert Mugabe
would rule from behind the grave; talk of being stuck in the past!
Before independence people
dreamt of freedom, justice, liberty and economic prosperity; the Zimbabwe of
the last 36 years, Mugabe’s Zimbabwe, has been worse than many had thought
possible. 36 years of gross mismanagement, rampant corruption and lawless have
destroyed the country’s economy sending unemployment soaring into 90% plus and
forcing millions into a life of abject poverty.
A country that used to pride
itself in being the breadbasket of the region is now dependent on imported food
aid. Zimbabwe has some of the best land and good weather to grow all the food
we want, our problem is one of poor leadership. Out of greed and envy, Mugabe
and his cronies seized the white owned farm for themselves but failed to maintain
the farms’ productivity.
“Munda hauzvirimi!” as my late
mother would say! (A rich harvest comes from hard work not envy!)
In a time and age when man has
turned the desert into a blooming Garden of Eden; we in Zimbabwe are starving
in the Garden of Eden – a celebration of human ingenuity on the one hand and damning
testimonial human incompetence and failed leadership on the other.
The corruption and looting has
left Zimbabwe so impoverished we cannot even afford to pay for the imported
food. Last month VP Mnangagwa said the country "requires a total of $1.57
billion with effect from February to December 2016." In March Mugabe
admitted that $15 billion of Marange diamond revenue was looted.
Mugabe has stayed in power for
36 years only because he has systematically denied the people a meaningful free
and fair vote. In his years in power, he has murdered over 30 000 innocent
Zimbabwe to establish and retain his de facto one-party cum one-man
dictatorship.
In the last 16 years Mugabe has
turned the war veterans and security sector chefs, the heroes and heroines of
the liberation war to end white colonial rule, into marauding rogues harassing,
beating, raping and even murdering defenceless civilians, to force them to vote
for him and his party. These men and women fought for freedoms and now they are
no better than Ian Smith’s despised storm troopers, “Dzakutsaku”, who too
harassed, beat, etc. defenceless civilians, to force them to support the racist
regime.
The same rogue war veterans now
want to stampede Mugabe out of office and replace him with Mnangagwa. Imposing
Mnangagwa on Zanu PF is one thing but imposing him on a nation desperate to end
the reign of corruption and tyrannical oppression is something Zimbabweans are
going to resist.
The greatest tragedy of
Zimbabwe is that after 36 years of corrupt and tyrannical Mugabe rule with the
sand glass finally running out on the tyrant, due to old age and ill health;
the nation should find itself in this most unfortunate position of having no plan,
vision or hope of free, just and prosperous post Mugabe Zimbabwe. There is a
real danger of death ending the reign of one dictator only for a new tyrant to
take his place.
If we, the people, do not fight
now to stop these latter-day dzakutsaku from replacing Mugabe with another
dictator; once the new tyrant has tasted the sweetness of absolute power then
forcing him/her to give it up will be another battle royal comparable to the
one we have been fighting and lost these last 36 years to force Mugabe to give
up power!
For the record, we had many
opportunities to end Mugabe’s dictatorship with the best chance coming during
the GNU; all Morgan Tsvangirai and his MDC friends had to do then is to implement
the democratic reforms. They failed to get even one reform implemented. Not even
one.
Mugabe has bamboozled his
political opponents and rigged the elections to stay in power but the one thing
he has failed to do is rig economic recovery. The current economic meltdown has
reached the point where the situation is not socially, politically and morally
unsustainable and the only way to stop the economic meltdown is by holding
free, fair and credible elections.
Regime change is now as certain
as the day following night and this is something that Mugabe himself and these
dzakutsaku hardliners will have to accept whether they like it or not. The
economic meltdown is creating the opportunity which we can use to demand and
force through all the democratic reforms MDC failed to implement. This time, we
must not waste this golden opportunity!
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