With unemployment rate
at a nauseating 90% and ¾ of the population living on US$1.00 or less a day it
is not surprising to read that the competition for public office within Zanu PF
itself is hotting up already. When the only sure ticket for a meal going in the
country is to be an MP, Senator or at the very least a councillor and abject poverty
awaits all those who fail to secure the gravy train seat; the fight for a seat
is a life and death matter.
“Several other
internal developments point to difficult times ahead for sitting Zanu PF
members of Parliament and senators,” reported the Daily News. Reporters do not
stab to kill but cannot resist the stab in the buttocks, just to make the
individual suffer.
Here is the growing list
of demands all Zanu PF wannabe MP or senator will have to negotiate this year:
· Zanu PF Youth League is demanding 30%
of the seats.
·
Zanu PF Women’s
League are demanding a 50-50 representation in both Parliament and local
government
·
The war veterans
were definitely at the coal face in the war to stop Robert Mugabe booting them
out of Zanu PF to give the party to his wife and her G40 upstarts. They told
Mugabe to his face that they, the liberation war fighters, were the “stockholders
of Zanu PF and Zimbabwe and the party leaders and povo were Stakeholders to be
hired and fired by the stockholders”. Now that the G40 faction has been vanquished
or driven underground or exile, the war veterans will now want a share of the
spoils of power. Many of them have lived in abject poverty for decades and they
will see this as their last chance to finally join in the looting.
·
The top brass in the
Army, Police and CIO who played the key role in the military coup, the ones who
delivered the coup de grace, that finished Mugabe and G40 have already been
helping themselves to the choice cuts, as Ministers, VP, etc. They will not be
giving up their new post in a hurry. With Minister of Finance, Patrick
Chinamasa, announcing that the regime will be forcing all government employees
above the retirement age to do so; many, many more securocrats will be looking
at going into politics to escape poverty.
Zanu PF is a party
of thugs and for 30 years or so Robert Mugabe managed to keep the peace in the
party ranks by dolling out the country’s looted wealth, patronage jobs, the
seized former white owned farms, etc. The criminal waste of human and material
resource this entailed was not sustainable and it is not surprising that as the
amount of looted wealth available started to fall the infighting in Zanu PF started.
Looted wealth was the glue that held Zanu PF thugs together, take away the
wealth and the thugs are at each other’s throat; fighting over the scraps like
hyenas.
Unlike Mugabe who
inherited a very rich and prosperous Zimbabwe in 1980, President Mnangagwa is
inheriting an impoverished Zimbabwe and a party already fighting each other for
the scraps. Mnangagwa is desperate to consolidated his own Zanu PF political
base and, sadly, for him has precious little to give away to the ever demanding
but wasteful Zanu PF members! The members know they best chance of escaping
poverty, which has already claimed so many Zimbabweans, is to win a seat on the
gravy train!
President Mnangagwa
has talked of 2018 as the year of the people and the country holding free, fair
and credible elections. It is just talk! There is going to a free for all, no holds
barred, in Zanu PF’s primary elections to select the party’s candidate for the
national elections. If he cannot enforce free, fair and credible elections in
his own party what hope is there he will rein in those party thugs who consider
Zanu PF members stockholders, ordinary Zimbabweans stakeholders and opposition
members agents of regime-change foreign powers!
7 comments:
“All aspiring candidates will be given an opportunity to contest in primary elections for constituencies they wish to represent,” said Victor Matemadanda.
“We don’t get elected because we belong to a certain social group. It is against the dictates of democracy because people are not voted because they are war veterans, youths or women but because they can deliver for the electorate and to us that should be the yardstick.”
Poor Victor Matemadanda he was Zanu PF Political Commissar for a few days only to be booted out and the job given to Elbert Rugeje. He was not bothered about merit when he was appointed but now it does because he lost the job. All these years the war veterans have imposed Mugabe and Zanu PF on the nation regardless of the regime’s failure to deliver for the electorate so what has change?
All the competent groups want to be in power for the economic benefits of holding it; one’s performance has nothing to do with it. All the Zanu PF people fighting for power are doing it out of sense of entitlement. None of these people have ever stopped to think that the ordinary people are entitled to a meaningful say in who governs.
What most people have failed to understand is that merit counts for nothing in Zanu PF circles it is entitlement and connections that matter. President Mnangagwa and all those around him have been in power for decades and some all the last 37 years and have accomplished very little to write home about and yet they still want to lead. Zimbabwe is in a real political and economic mess and people like Mnangagwa can try to blame former President Mugabe for everything but after 37 years as the tyrant’s right-hand man only the naïve and gullible voters will buy that rubbish. When you have a pathetic track record and no talent, the last thing you want is free, fair and credible elections!
Zanu PF as a party and as individual politicians know that free and fair elections is a luxury they cannot afford. The opposition is in “shambles”, as some opposition leaders likes Eddie Cross and David Coltart have already conceded; still no one in Zanu PF would risk holding free and fair elections.
Zanu PF leaders have learnt an important lesson from the 2008 chaos where the party lost the March vote to MDC and had to resorted to cooking up the vote count to force a run-off and then to using brute violence to force people to vote for Mugabe. The party has since learnt to ensure they rig the vote up front and, come voting day, the party has the victory already in the bag.
“If you go into elections next month, you are going to lose; the elections are done,” SADC leaders MDC at the Maputu Summit in June 2013. They knew well ahead of time, Zanu PF had the election in the bag and time proved them right.
President Mnangagwa will never ever implement any democratic reforms, not if he can help it; what he will do is rig the vote but in such a way that the evidence is very hard to uncover. Stopping his thugs from using the usual crude vote rigging tactics of bygone days will be his greatest challenge. Mugabe resorted to bribing Zanu PF candidates in 2013 by giving each a $10 000 cash, new vehicle and supply them all the election campaign materials – T-shirts, food handouts, etc. The tyrant assumed the candidates of victory without giving away any detail how the party was going to achieve that. It is no secret that many Zanu PF candidates were pleasantly surprised to win that year. Mnangagwa will be doing the same!
The trouble with our social media politicians is that everything they say and do lacks detailed analysis. They hardly ever deal with anything beyond the superficial level.
People have often said of Mai Mujuru, Simon Muzenda and other Zanu PF simpletons said very little so people thought them fools than speak and remove all doubt. When Mai Mujuru was booted out of Zanu PF, she was forced to speak and it did not take her long to prove that she is indeed a simpleton.
Fadzai Mahere and Pastor Mawarire are simpletons who have used social media to say a lot but, given twitter's 140 character limit, also to say very little on the subject matter. Fadzai has no clue on substantive issues such as the need to implement the democratic reforms and hence the reason she is determined to contest this year's elections even if there are no reforms in place.
She is joining the chorus of those call for the release of detained Gukurahundi protestors because it is an opportunity to get some publicity; she is certainly not taking Mnangagwa on! She lacks the intellect and in for the long haul commitment to do that!
Information Communication Technology (ICT) minister Supa Mandiwanzira is being investigated for corruption by the Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission (ZACC) for allegedly handpicking a Chinese firm to investigate Huawei. Mandiwanzira allegedly instructed NetOne to pay the company $4 million.
Many Zanu PF leaders are corrupt and that includes the President Mnangagwa and VP Chiwenga themselves. It is no secret that the former was name in the UN report on corruption in DRC and the latter cannot deny his C&M mansion was not paid for from the wages of the Commander.
There is no doubt that we will never ever stamp out corruption in the country as long as those operating the anti-corruption drag-net have to be very careful never catch any listed individuals - the list is a very long one and more and more names are being added daily. Even the small fish are appearing on the scarred cow list, they were smart enough to know the details of the big fish's corrupt dealings and they are now using that information to blackmail the big fish.
The only way to end corruption is to remove the corrupt Zanu PF leaders from power. We need free, fair and credible elections to do this!
All these MDC candidates were warned not to contest the 2013 elections without reforms but they would not listen. They now realise that they chance of winning MDC primaries much less the national elections are now zero and hence the reason they are now deserting the party in droves. The nation would have been better off if the 2013 elections had been postponed to allow reforms to be implemented. People like Eric sold-out - an altogether common occurrence in Zimbabwe politics!
Joice Mujuru said the NPP’s slogan ‘Ngaende Ngaende’ (Mugabe Must Go) was not aimed at Robert Mugabe only but at the entire regime.
“But the whole regime and its system, they must all go; nothing has changed politically, economically and even on dealing with issues of corruption,” she said.
This is interesting because until three years ago she and many of those around her key players in Zanu PF and they helped build the regime into the monster it is today. She is right since Mugabe’s departure nothing has changed but since her own departure nothing had change either. So, she only wants the regime to go now for no other reason other than that she was booted out!
There is nothing to convince anyone that her new political party, National People’s Party, (NPP) will be any different from Zanu PF. NPP has paid lip service to the demands to implement the democratic changes necessary for free, fair and credible elections, proof the party has no clue what these reforms are about. Even if NPP was to win this year’s elections we can be certain of one thing – the party will not implement any of the democratic reforms. Mujuru will be using all the dirty and undemocratic practices she learned at Mugabe’s feet to moulding NPP in the image of the Zanu PF!
The fifth group of Zanu PF members fight for power are the bigwigs like Oppah Muchinguri Kashiri, Hungwe, Paul Mangwana, etc. They have been in politics for donkey years, have nothing to show for it and yet they all want a seat on the gravy train. to stay in power. They know that whatever they have put aside, it is not enough for the difficult years ahead. They can see other bigwigs like Didymus Mutasa who quick they sunk into economic trouble as soon as they lost political power. The old bigwigs will not want free and fair elections either.
No one in Zanu PF can afford to lose a gravy train seat these days, that is fact! The one thing over which Zanu PF members will agree on is that they do not wanr free, fair and credible elections. Losing power to another Zanu PF member will bea very bitter pill for them to swallow but losing to the opposition could well close the door to their political dreams for all time. That will be a very bitter pill for them to swallow!
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