Last
night, many people especially Zimbabweans expected President Mugabe to say he
was resigning his position as President of the country. It is an understatement
to say many people outraged to hear him rumble on and on about trivial matters
and not say the one thing they wanted to hear.
Come
to think of it, people would have been surprise if he had resigned. After 37
years of Mugabe’s corrupt, vote rigging and murderous rule; we know that his greed
for absolute power is insatiable and that, in his pursuit of power, he is ruthless
and totally indifferent to the suffering and even deaths of other people. “Moyo
wake wakashata seseri kumusha!” (His heart is as dirty and foul as bush
lavatory!), as my late mother would say.
So,
Mugabe’s refusal to resign is in keeping with his dirty and foul as the bush
lavatory heart.
University
of Zimbabwe students had a huge demonstration, lectures and exanimations were
cancelled, demanding Mugabe’s resignation. The war veterans led by former
Minister Chris Mutsvangwa are calling for a huge public demonstration tomorrow;
they too are demanding that Mugabe resign “immediately”!
Zanu
PF central committee has met and resolved to expel President Mugabe from the
party. The party which has well over the two thirds majority in both houses has
resolved to impeach President Mugabe, proceeding to start on Tuesday, tomorrow.
Impeachment should have been the coup plotter’s plan B and should have been
triggered as soon as it was clear that President Mugabe would not resign. The
process should take a few days but given Zanu PF’s blundering incompetence it
could take weeks!
There
is nothing to be gained by people staging more public demonstrations calling on
Mugabe to resign, especially now that the impeachment process has finally began.
Besides the people should now be turning their attention on their own big fight
before them, the fight for the implementation of the democratic reforms. The
fight to remove Mugabe from office is important but only if it is a stepping
stone to achieving our goal of dismantling the Zanu PF dictatorship to create a
democratic Zimbabwe.
What
the people must understand is that the firing of Mnangagwa and the coup that
followed are all part and parcel of the factional wars that have been tearing Zanu
PF apart, the party is imploding. But whichever faction wins and never mind how
much weakened it might be we should not make the mistake of assuming the Zanu
PF dictatorship itself is dead too. Indeed, throughout the factional fighting
both sides have been very careful not to destroy the dictatorship, it is the
bridge both side want retained intact.
The
Lacoste faction, staging the coup and now the follow up impeachment is only
interested in removing Mugabe from office and replace him with Mnangagwa. The
Zanu PF dictatorship complete with its corrupted Police, Army, ZEC, etc. has
not changed and will be expected to kick into gear, rig the vote and deliver
another Zanu PF electoral victory. Mugabe and the other G40 members know that
the Lacoste Zanu PF led government will not seek to recover all their amassed
wealth for fear the move will backfire and expose their own looting too.
For
ordinary Zimbabwean need the dictatorship dismantle for us to restore our
individual freedoms and basic human rights including the right to free and fair
elections and the right to life. We need the bricks from the dismantled
dictatorship to rebuild the democratic institutions, the two systems of
government cannot co-exist, as long as the dictatorship remains democracy will
remain a pipe dream.
The
G40 vs Lacoste factional war has taken a heavy toll on both and the Zanu PF
dictatorship is at its weakest. This is the most opportune time for the people
to press their demand for meaningful democratic change and not be distracted by
the side show of the final act driving Mugabe out of office.
Come
to think of it, Mugabe and his G40 can stay on stay on in one form or another
and harass and hurry Mnangagwa, for the remaining 8 months of this regime’s
term of office, if that will weaken the Zanu PF dictatorship even more. Unlike
the General Chiwenga and his posse of generals who stage the coup whose primary
object was to remove Mugabe and replace him with Mnangagwa, our primary
objective is to dismantle the Zanu PF dictatorship, the mother ship, itself.
Mugabe’s
refusal to resign because of his dirty and foul heart may force the Zanu PF’s
factional war to drag on and on to be bitter end; allowing the Mnangagwa
faction no time to settle and regroup and leaving them to inherit a hollowed
out Zanu PF dictatorship. This would be very much to our advantage; our drive
for democratic change has even better chance of success against an enfeebled
Mnangagwa than a well-rested regrouped Mnangagwa.
If
we, the people of Zimbabwe, play our cards right we can stay out of the Zanu PF
factional war and let Mugabe wear out Mnangagwa and his Lacoste thugs. Mugabe
has been dealt a damaging blow with the coup, they are too weak to deliver the
coup de grace but smart enough to know they cannot let him off the hook or they
are all dead. With the rage swept from under his feet Mugabe cannot cause very
little mischief to the nation but he is clearly causing havoc in Zanu PF
itself. With each passing day Mugabe remains president he is making Mnangagwa
look more and more foolish.
Mugabe
has always treated his Zanu PF cronies and thugs with contempt. In his 37 years
in power, there was cabinet meeting unless he was there to chair it, for
example. Little wonder Margaret Dongo once dismissed Zanu PF MPs, cabinet
members and other party leaders as “vakadzi vaMugabe” (Mugabe’s subservient
concubines)!
There
are stories that Mugabe is insisting on serving his full five-year term. If
that was to happen, we can be certain of one thing Mugabe will be trying every
dirty trick he can think of to ensure Mnangagwa is defeated and never ever become
president! So, given time G40 and Lacoste destroy each other completely, and
destroy the Zanu PF dictatorship itself too. What better outcome could the
nation wish for than that!
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