Mugabe imposed provincial leaders to stop Mujuru becoming VP but that started fires he cannot put out!

When Mugabe carried out his staged-managed vote-of-no-confidence in provincial leaders to rig Zanu PF’s party elections which Mai Mujuru was set to win he achieved his primary objective of stealing electoral victory but created a problem of insubordination at provincial level and below which threatening to get out of control.    

At the beginning of August 2013, four months before the party’s elective December 2013 congress, Mai Mujuru’s supporters were in the majority in eight out of the ten provinces plus the Youth League. The other faction led by now VP Mnangagwa had two provinces and the Women’s League. Each of the provinces and two Leagues were entitled to nominate a portion of congress delegate members and central committee members who then constituted the election college to elect the three individuals who would be the two Vice Presidents and the chairperson of the party. It was a mathematical certainty that Mai Mujuru would retain her post as one of the two VP. Mugabe and Mnangagwa did not want her as VP and so had to do something quick smart!

The plan to unseat Mujuru was simple enough; accuse her of “factionalism” and plotting to assassinate Mugabe. All the senior party members like Rugare Gumbo and Didymus Mutasa who had supported her bid for VP position were either haunted out of the party or haunted into silence. The provincial leaders, especially the chairperson position, were forced out of power through stage-managed vote-of-no-confidence by members bussed in for the purpose. New interim provincial executives were then appointed to replace the elected Mujuru supportive executives.

It was the new provincial executives which then nominated congress delegate and supervised the election of central committee members. Known Mujuru supporters included Mai Mujuru herself and then cabinet ministers were barred from putting their names forward for these nominated or elected positions.

Just in case the move to keep Mujuru supporters away from the congress did not succeed, Mugabe and Mnangagwa had a plan B. They changed the party’s constitution taking away congress’s power to elect the two VP positions; it was now the party’s first secretary who also becomes national President who would appoint whoever he/she placed.

The replacement of the provincial leadership with an imposed one delivered the immediate objective of ensuring congress, the central committee and the politburo – composed of members selected by Mugabe alone from the central committee pool – will have no Mujuru loyalists. No doubt Mugabe and Mnangagwa must have expected some murmuring after breaking the rules so blatantly to get what they wanted; the party is notorious for its disregard of the law and riding roughshod over other people’s basic rights and freedoms, still many of the Zanu PF members who founded themselves or the receiving end of a rigged electoral process never thought Mugabe would ever play such dirty tricks on them. They got a lot more than a few murmurings!

Whilst many of the purged leaders started running scared immediately others like Rugare Gumbo and Didymus Mutasa have decided they will not gone down quietly. Their fight back has had no meaningful impact because they tried to take the moral high ground and attach Mugabe’s undemocratic tactics and failed economic policies. The Zimbabwe public dismissed them as hypocrites for seeing these faults now that they have lost their positions in the Zanu PF dictatorship but never said a word about all the corruption, vote rigging and political violence and murders until now.

It is the fear of the disloyalty of the party members below the provincial level who have cause to feel cheated since they are the ones who were denied any meaningful say in those who now represent them at central committee level. Mugabe has since moved quickly and decisively to dismiss most known Mujuru loyalist from cabinet but has been powerless to act against MPs and Senators since these are elected positions. The last thing Mugabe wants is to have these MPs or Senators forming a parallel political power base challenging his imposed leadership.

So how to pull the political rag, of grass-root membership support at district and cell level, from under the remaining Mujuru loyalists without appearing to be doing so? That is the big worry for Mugabe and, it seems, he has no solution.

Ever since the imposed provincial leadership the party members in one province at least, Mashonaland East, have pointedly rejected the provincial leadership imposed on them just before last year’s congress. The party’s Political Commissar, Minister Kasukuwere, has been forced to sack on mass the imposed provincial leadership and appoint another 15-member interim committee.

Speaking during the meeting Kasukuwere said the province should come up with new structures, adding that a new substantive provincial executive should be in place by April.

If Mai Mujuru had grass-root support, it seems that she did, then how is Mugabe going to rig that, is the million dollar question?

Of course everyone wants to be the leader but in a country where holding public office has become the only route to wealth and influence the fight for power has been fierce. The country’s worsening economic situation in which being in power is the only way to escape abject poverty; the fight for power has become a dog-eat-dog affair. The infighting in Zanu PF is at all levels is set to get worse, much worse and, it seems, there is little Mugabe can do about it.

“Kasukuwere is on a nationwide tour aimed at extinguishing the party’s never-ending fires at national, provincial and district levels — following on-going votes of no confidence that have led to the controversial suspension of scores of party bigwigs on account of their perceived support for Mujuru, and that camp’s alleged plot to illegally oust President Robert Mugabe from power,” reported the Daily News.

The report is spot-on the infighting in Zanu PF constitute “never-ending fires”. The country’s worsening economic situation fuelling those fires! 

Economic meltdown forces Mugabe to make embarrassing u-turn of his egotistic land issue!

Lands Minister Douglas Mombeshora has announced that the black farmers who benefited from the white farm seizure of the last 15 years only for most of the farms to be left fallow soon thereafter can now enter into “joint ventures” with the white farms.

There is still a lot of confusion as to what these joint ventures entail as recent as last month Mugabe was still wittering about no whites will be allowed to own land in Zimbabwe.

“But we need to see the contract before it is signed because we want to protect both parties and we encourage fair play, not manipulation of one party by the other,” explained the Minister. “It is not true to say that government ever disapproved contract-farming and joint ventures… what government didn’t approve of (and doesn’t allow) even now is sub-leasing of land.” Yes Minister it is as clear as mud!

The worsening economic situation is certainly working its magic, the 90% plus unemployment rate, the 16% or 2 million now living in abject poverty and all the other grim economic realities are force the regime to accept the stupidity of its own policies. There is not going to be a flood of white farmers signing these joint ventures because Zanu PF is notorious for say one thing today and something else tomorrow, especial Mugabe. The single most important thing here that the regime ditching its own flagship policies. It is great that this is happen when Mugabe is still alive, kicking and of sound mind; the tyrant, Mugabe, is eating humble pie in his own life time! 

It is also important that the tyrant’s hard-line supporters like Minister Kasukuwere, on the indigenisation laws, and the war vet leaders like Joseph Chinotimba ans Jabulani Sibanda, on the land issue, who made names for themselves for their passionate support of these tyrant's racism and myopic policies witness the tyrant himself made the landmark U-turn on these policies.

Comrade Chinos and Sibanda, where are you now? You led the njambanja thugs in the countless white farm seizures with all that all-night drumming, lawless thuggery and, in many cases, wanton violence and murders. What do you say now about this about face U-turn by Mugabe on the one issue, above all others, has defined Mugabe and all he stood for as a black nationalist?

After all these years of Mugabe breathing fire on the land issue now it turns out that he did not mean anything he said, it was all hot air. The collapse of the country’s agricultural sector is the single biggest factor to cause the country’s economic collapse from which the economy has yet to recover. And it was all for no purpose other than to gratify a tyrant’s hot-air balloon ego.

Millions of Zimbabweans have had their lives turned up-side down causing heart-breaking suffering and hundreds of thousands of lives have been lost unnecessarily to gratify a totally misplace stupid ego! It sickens me just to think of it. How did we allow ourselves to get into this mess and, better still, we must not waste a day to end this madness!

Ibbo Mandaza predicts positive changes after Mugabe - all wishful thinking, the type that has landed us in this hell!

Zimbabwe has sunk to these nauseating depths of political chaos and economic despair because for 34 years we has elected to do nothing about building ourselves the shelter better able to withstand the buffeting storms of political and economic storms of live. We chose to see a silver-lining in every storm even the ones with clouds are black as hell and gale force winds still we insisted in seeing the silver-lining where none existed; our nation’s reprise.

So time and again the nation was left at the mercy of whatever the political or economic storm; each storm would ran its course without a care in the world of the suffering, misery and death it brought for it has no body to be kicked, soul to be damned and knows not what mercy is. If for man and beast to seek shelter from the storm and not for the storm to blow more gently on all those who fail to do so or change course to avoid them altogether.

Our political and economic storms are man-made; not only is it folly that we have allowed the anarchist rule the day we foolish look for the silver-linings in these man-made storms. It is with this reprise characteristic foolishness that Mr Ibbo Mandaza tells us to see the silver-lining on the dark and oppressive economic and political storms that have hang over the nation for decades and getting worse and worse, not better, with time.

"I am very optimistic. Things would begin to happen this year. You will see," said Mandaza, according to a New Zimbabwe report.

Mandaza said the aftermath of Zanu PF's turbulent congress last month, coupled with President Mugabe's failing health, would instead, trigger positive change for the entire country.

"The dynamics of the politics towards the end of 2014 are bound to play out dramatically not to mention health factors. It's bound to happen, things will happen this year. With every passage of time things can be better in Zimbabwe. It's all to do with the imminent post Mugabe era."

Mr Mandaza did not give even one reason for his optimism because there is absolutely no reason there. This optimism is nothing more than wishful thinking born out of the decades of idleness and foolishness.

The country is facing the most serious economic meltdown, all man-made of course, that has sent unemployment into nauseating height of 90% plus, 16% or 2 million Zimbabweans are living in abject poverty, etc. and Mr Mandaza in his infinite wisdom suggests that we should do nothing and pinned all our hopes on Mugabe’s death.

Life waits for no man, in this case for the death of one tyrant. What are the unemployed to do whilst they wait? What are the hungry to eat whilst the nation waits for Mugabe to die?

After waiting for however long it takes for Mugabe to finally take his finally bow, it could be a long wait given that the nation has spent an inordinate amount of money to keep him alive; what then? 

The root cause of Zimbabwe’s economic paralysis is decades of gross mismanagement and rampant corruption; decades of denial have allowed these cancerous problems to grow and spread and the chickens have finally come home to roost in their millions like red billed quelea! Mugabe has lacked the political will to address these problems it is naïve to think that Mnangagwa will, particularly in the present economic environment were anyone laid off is literally throw to the economic wolves of poverty.

Mugabe has the country up to its eyes in debt, the country’s infrastructure in a mess and has sold all the nation’s silver for a song to the Chinese, Russians and other foreigners; Mnangagwa’s inheritance from Mugabe is the exact opposite of the rich and boisterous Mugabe got from Ian Smith.

Zimbabwe’s economic recovery is now dependent on getting this Zanu PF regime to step aside and allow for free and fair elections to elect a new government that does not depend on continued existence of the red billed quelea for its political survival. The real challenge for the nation is to get Mnangagwa to step aside; after waiting for 34 years to be president he will certainly not want to step aside now!

As a nation we failed to get rid of Mugabe all these last three decades because we chose to see something positive in his rule although there never was as we can finally testify. There is really no reason to think Mnangagwa will do any better other than it is an excellent excuse for doing nothing about the nation’s mountain of economic and political problems.

“With every passage of time things can be better in Zimbabwe,” the ever optimism Ibbo Mabdaza tells us. Of course things can get better but never by wishing them so alone; we need to take ownership of our problems and do something to solve them. All Zimbabwe’s political and economic problems are man-made and it is within our powers to solve them only we must put our backs into it!

Mugabe a master of divide and rule has already divided the Mnangagwa faction!

Do you what the biggest killer amongst the hyenas is? It is not predation as no lion, the hyenas’ arch-enemy, will ever go out hunting for hyena. The odd occasion the lion does kill a hyena it will not eat it; another hyena will feast on the carcass, hyenas eat everything with flesh. It you ever see a lion eating a hyena you can be sure of one thing it is half-blind with hunger otherwise one look at that ugly face is enough to make the lion lose its appetite.

The only two other animals that will eat the hyena are vultures and the crocodile, like the hyena they too will eat anything. When these three see food; all their other sense, sight, smell, taste, etc., are supressed the stomach rules. Still neither vultures nor crocodile ever go out hunting hyenas.

The greatest killer of hyenas is stress, yes stress! There is not a moment of peace in the hyena clan; they are always fighting, if it is not for one dozen reasons it for two or three dozen other reasons. Zanu PF is a clan of hyenas in every sense of the word!

Zanu PF has just savagely expelled Mai Mujuru and her supporters, the purge is still unfinished business, and yet already there are reports that those united to ouster Mai Mujuru are now at each other’s throat.

Sources close to the developments said a "gang of four" comprising Information minister Jonathan Moyo , Environment minister Saviour Kasukuwere, Higher and Tertiary Education minister Oppah Muchinguri and Mugabe's nephew Patrick Zhuwao had reportedly turned their swords against the freshly-minted acting president.

The four, who played a crucial role in the ouster of former Vice-President Joice Mujuru, are now reportedly accusing Mnangagwa of letting them down by giving them less influential party and Cabinet positions.

Patrick Zhuwao is nothing but a Grace Mugabe proxy in the gang of four and her claim to the spoils of power is that it was her ruthless – the more so since it was unprovoked – attach on Mai Mujuru that saw the former VP dumped. When Grace announced that she wanted to be president, she was deadly serious and has not given up on that idea.

What makes this a typical hyena fight in it being senseless and futile is the gang of four are after Mnangagwa and not Mugabe. It is the tyrant Mugabe who appointed all the members of the politburo and cabinet; if Mnangagwa was consulted, which I doubt, then rest assured his advice was ignored. So why is the gang attaching Mnangagwa on matters over which he had no control; it does not make any sense. The gang is picking on Mnangagwa, the dragon fly, and not Mugabe, the wasp that stung them; that makes a lot sense in the hyena’s world.

Mugabe has kept his position as leader of Zanu PF by playing the divide and rule game. Admittedly it is easy to divide those who are divided to their subatomic level by their mutual greed, loathing, envy and the contemptuous disregard of the law. After destroying the Mujuru faction Mugabe needed to quickly create another faction to counter the Mnangagwa faction which was emerging victorious out of this factional war.

Up to now Jonathan Moyo and Oppar Muchinguri were in the Mnangagwa camp but not anymore. So Mugabe has created a new faction to counter Mnangagwa faction by splitting the Mnangagwa faction itself.

Following the pressure by the Chinese to promote Mnangagwa, Mugabe had no choice but to appoint him VP. He has deliberately demoted the gang of four, in a clear message that if they wanted power, they will have to fight Mnangagwa first. Hunting dogs hunt best when they are hungry and the lead dog, Grace Mugabe, has tasted blood, power, at its sweetest she is obsessed.

When Grace announced that she wanted to be president many dismissed it as a sick joke; she was serious, deadly serious. And now there is no stopping her in a quest to be president.

Professor Jonathan Moyo went out of his way to emphasise that the appointment of Mnangagwa as the first Vice President did not mean he was the one to succeed Mugabe. The public announcement must have been made with Robert Mugabe’s full knowledge if not at his instigation; he wanted the gang of four to know that there was a lot still left for them to be fighting for.

Mnangagwa cannot claim to have been popularly elected by anyone since Zanu PF’s own electoral process was rigged and so the gang of four feel they too are entitled to as much power as Mnangagwa got; this is what comes of lawlessness.

“At the weekend, a shadowy character Bishop Lazarus attacked Mnangagwa for holding business meetings at his Kwekwe farm and insinuated that he was plotting against Mugabe,” reported the Southern Eye. We have not heard the first chapter of the Mujuru plot against Mugabe and already there is yet another plot against the tyrant!

Hyenas have to sleep with one eye open and one ear alert even when they are surrounded by other hyenas from their own clan. After decades in Zanu PF one would think someone like Mnangagwa is used to the mindless infighting in Zanu PF; sadly no, stress is like a headache you never get used to it

VP Mphoko robustly defend his war record but avoids the post 1980 record of vote rigging and murders!

In the article 'I don't need Dabengwa, to approve my war credentials' - VP Mphoko, the VP goes to the river and back in defence of his war credentials. 

You are obsessed at what happened before independence as if that is all that matters! Zimbabwe has been turned into a hell-on-earth by people with an even more impressive war struggle record. If you really care about freedom and liberty, about peace and justice and the human rights and dignity of all Zimbabweans then why have you said nothing about all the corruption and mismanagement that has left millions of Zimbabweans living in abject poverty and despair? Why have you said nothing about the intimidation, rapes and even mass murders by this regime for selfish political gain?

Did you take part in the war of independence because you had your eyes on the reward – absolute power and all the benefits of influence and wealth that the regime has extorted from the nation these last 34 years? You are more interested in establishing you pre-independence credentials to justify why your claim to the share of the mercenary reward. 

The fact that Mugabe rigged Zanu PF’s own electoral process and before it last year’s national elections does not bother you one bit. You do not care that millions of Zimbabweans today are living in abject poverty because of Zanu PF misrule and that millions more are going to join them.

Only you care about is that you are now VP, you are airbrushed your pre-independence record to justify why you deserve to be right at the top, and now you can continue what you have been doing these last 34 years – crap on us ordinary mortals with no war record!

Well we the ordinary mortals with no war record are human being too and are worthy of the freedoms and human rights and dignities you, our “liberators”, have systematically denied us for the last 34 years. We are determined to end this repressive autocracy of which you are a part; right now, we really do not give a damn about your airbrushed liberation war record. You care more about your liberation war record than you do about the people you were supposed to liberate! 

“If you are in Zimbabwe, I am prepared to meet you for an in depth account of the struggle. Don’t listen to some of these stories. They are a creation of former Rhodesian agents who are still opetational,” wrote VP Mphoko.

“Remember that the armed struggle was fought under strict secrecy to protect lives.” 

Yes, but are you prepared to give “an in depth account” of how Zanu PF rigged last year’s elections too? That is more important and relevant to the nation right now than your airbrushed war account.

Your robust defence of your pre-independence war record is all very well but you must surely realise that the freedom, liberty, justice, etc. the whole nation (and not just you and your fellow Zanu PF cronies) fought for have not been realised. Give us a detailed account of you commitment to these principles and values since independence; because it is on that and that alone we will judge you competent to hold high public office. If you do not care above these things now, as many in Zanu PF have shown repeatedly these last 34 years, then how can we expect you to deliver something you do not care about!?

China want relationship lifted to higher level and yet impose Mnangagwa on Zim as if this was Hong Kong!

CHINA is willing to work with Zimbabwe to lift bilateral friendly relations to a higher level so as to bring more benefits to both peoples, Chinese Vice President Li Yuanchao has said. He was congratulating his two Zimbabwe counter parts VP Emmerson Mnangagwa and Phelekezela Mphoko on their recent appointments.

Lift bilateral friendly relations to a higher level, my a***e!

China helped train and arm Zanu PF freedom fighters in the country’s war to end white colonial rule but ever since independence China has milked Zimbabwe. We have repaid China for that military debt a thousand fold. China has interfered in Zimbabwe’s politics to help Mugabe and Zanu PF remain in power all these last 34 years regardless of the wishes of the ordinary people or how much they have suffered under this tyrannical regime.

China has help foster this Zanu PF dictatorship on the nation by arming the regime to the teeth, help it rig elections, build the $200 million Spy University in Mazowe and help train the CIO cadres, etc. China has done all this for Mugabe and Zanu PF in return for being granted unfettered access to the nation’s wealth and resources.

The people of Zimbabwe have suffered the ill effects of having a corrupt and tyrannical government they were powerless to remove and having foreigners plunder the nation’s wealth whilst they languish in poverty and despair. Enough is enough!

China and Israel’s NIKUV helped Mugabe and Mnangagwa rigged last year’s national elections and the two have since gone on to rig Zanu PF’s own internal elections to secure Mnangagwa the VP position. China has reportedly promised to pay Zimbabwe $1 billion if Mnangagwa, their choice candidate, secured the VP appointment. China must realise that the $1 billion will have no effect on Zimbabwe’s economic meltdown.

Zimbabwe’s economic meltdown is caused by the decades of misrule and totally unworkable indigenisation laws that has forced investors and donors to shy away from the country. There will never be any meaningful economic recovery without addressing these problems and the $1 billion from the Chinese will be as effective as trying to put out a forest fire with spit.

China is using the $1 billion bribe to buy continued political influence in Zimbabwe; nothing more and nothing less.

We the people of Zimbabwe are seeking to end this Zanu PF dictatorship that has caused so much suffering and grief to the nation. We view China’s continued attempts to prop up this Zanu PF dictatorship and thus deny us our basic and fundamental right to self-determination with increasing resentment and anger. China must be told and in no uncertain terms that Zimbabwe is not Hong Kong; the Chinese can impose their own choice of regime on the later but must never again presume to do the same on us! 

MDC's Gutu advise purged Zanu PF leaders to appease Mugabe to stay on gravy train - stupid advice!

No one of any substance (there is a whole army of CIO agents, the modern day Dzakutsaku on Smith day, a curse to this nation as their forerunners were in their time) who can ever dispute the fact that all those being purged from Zanu PF are being punished for daring to exercise their basic right to choose who the two Vice Presidents of Zanu PF were going to be. A right Mugabe has since surreptitiously since taken away to add to his already excessive powers to hire and fire all the members of the party’s politburo – the supreme decision making body of the party.

All the other charges being labelled against the purged members like corruption, chilazing, etc.;  although many are true, they are however all spurious in that they are historic and they target only those who had supported Mai Mujuru when these problems are common to all party members.

It is the reaction of those fired Zanu PF officials that has both surprised and disappointed most men and women of substance; they all turned the other cheek.

After months of being harangued and having her name blackened by none other than Grace Mugabe herself and denied the opportunity to defend her honour and then summarily elbowed out of the way in the party and sacked from government Mai Mujuru took it all on the chin. She said she would not contest anything but instead thank Mugabe for having appointed her to serve in government. All her supporters who were purged with her followed her lead.

“The firing was perfectly legal,” said former deputy minister of Justice Legal and parliamentary Affairs, Fortune Chasi.

“The chief executive officer of the country is entitled to change his team from time to time on the basis of non-performance or he could simply want to refocus his team and I have got no hard feelings whatsoever.”

But that is just it; the purge had nothing to do performance, etc. but everything to do with a tyrant usurping the party members’ rights to a meaningful say in who leads the party just as he had usurped the ordinary Zimbabweans rights to a meaning say in who rules the country a year ago. What is surprising and disappointing is that none of these leaders had the guts to stand up and stop this relentless erosion of the individual freedoms and human rights and dignity by a tyrant whose greed and lust for absolute power in insatiable.

On second thoughts; no one of any substance should be really surprised that none of these Zanu PF leaders dared to challenge Mugabe. They have all these years ridden roughshod over the people’s hopes and dreams with the same cold-hearted indifference as Mugabe himself; they are all tyrants just like him in their own way. For them to accuse him of being a tyrant would have been the hypocrisy of a hyena denouncing another hyena for eating meat as if he was a vegetarian.

So in a way it is good that Mai Mujuru, Chasi and all the other Zanu PF leaders purged from the party have spared us the virtuous pontificating and platitudes. Sadly there was no such lucky from Harvest House; MDC-T spokesman, Obert Gutu, is one not to miss the opportunity preach a sermon. 

“All tyrants crave to be hero-worshipped and eulogised; in ZANU PF merit counts for nothing. If you want to remain on the feeding table, you have to continue lavishing praise on the supreme leader in a cult kind of fashion,” he said.

All the MDC leaders should know only too well about hero-worshipping and eulogising the tyrant; it was all they ever did throughout the five years of the GNU!

There is no one of substance in Harvest House because nothing of substance ever comes out of there and just to prove the point Mr Gutu is wittering about “lavishing praise” on the tyrant to keep one’s place at the table. He is talking about men and women who have done all that and more all their lives but are now being booted off the table.

MDC wasted five years lavishing praise on Mugabe and did absolutely nothing regarding implementing the democratic reforms just to appease the tyrant. And yet come the elections the tyrant kicked them all in the teeth and threw them off the gravy train. Of all people Obert Gutu should now know appeasing a tyrant is a waste of time! 

There is nothing in this world more annoying than being in trouble and a presumptuous an idiot offering you stupid advice! “If you want to remain on the feeding table, you have to continue lavishing praise on the supreme leader!” Indeed