The Sunday Mail
I am happy. The Zhuwao Brief congratulates Zanu-PF for retaining the Hwedza North seat.
This is a particularly good week in that Vice President Mnangagwa has been tasked to sort out the mess in Harare East.
I have every confidence in his capabilities.
My spirits are not dampened by the fulfilment of a threat that I received from a leader of the war veterans association that they would be unleashing some of their own on me.
I suppose the Press conference was part of that “unleashing”.
That is the price that one pays for being principled enough to refuse to accommodate an individual in Empowerment Corporation at the cost of the association that they represent.
The debacle of Zanu-PF fielding two candidates in Harare East yielded a cacophony of incomprehensible and unfathomably stupid gibberish across a variety of media this past week.
For the benefit of those empty and unintelligent vessels that were making these noises, I provide a definition: a cacophony is a mixture of loud, harsh, unpleasant, jarring and discordant sounds that are difficult or impossible to understand.
Some of this immeasurably nonsensical drivel has emanated from individuals who have claim on leadership in some institutions. These institutions are critically important organisations with responsibilities and obligations to uplift the welfare of their members.
I am convinced that the bulk of these organisations’ membership is made up of respectable people of sober mind who deserve to be better served by their leadership. I pity these institutions and their honourable members for the dearth of leadership that has been foisted upon them.
It’s such a shame.
The Herald of Saturday 16th May 2015 reported that “the party has ruled that Comrade Mukupe won an open and transparent primary election, and that Comrade Gumbo lost that primary election”.
A Politburo source is reported to have remarked that “it was really an easy decision”; more so considering that the basis for ruling against Cde Gumbo was “she could have challenged Comrade Mukupe’s victory using the party’s well established appeals processes but she neglected to do so”.
But why has there been so much noise over a very simple issue that could be resolved by way of people sitting down and talking rationally about it? Why was the issue escalated all the way to the Zanu-PF Politburo? Was it necessary to labour the ruling party’s supreme policy-making organ with such a mundane matter?
Clues to some of the answers to these questions can be discerned from how the party chose to communicate its ruling. The party chose, in its wisdom, to have a person as senior as VP Mnangagwa to communicate the ruling.
I am convinced that the party knew that the choice of VP Mnangagwa would debunk the myth of factionalism that was being peddled. In order to confuse matters, the result of a simple primary election was elevated to being part of a delusional succession matrix incorporating a faction labelled as Generation 40 (G40).
The notion that there exists a faction labelled G40 that is fighting against VP Mnangagwa is nonsensical and belongs to the lunatic fringe. I have been placed into this fictitious grouping because I will be turning 48 next weekend (hint hint, wink wink, nudge nudge — I am already accepting presents kkkkkk).
I do not know of the existence of such a formation, let alone subscribing to it. I have placed on record my perspectives on factionalism during the Zhuwao Brief’s series of factionalism that was run in The Sunday Mail during the last quarter of 2014.
I abhor and detest factionalism.
Secondly, I have the utmost respect for VP Mnangagwa who gave me my first political job in 2003.
I have worked under his direct tutelage and mentorship for over a decade since 2003 when I became the national director of the Zanu-PF Youth League.
My ability to write has been sharpened under his leadership of the resolutions committee of Zanu-PF Congresses and Conferences up until he was elevated to VP.
VP Mnangagwa, together with Cde Sekeramayi, were the most youth-friendly leaders in the party during the Youth League tenure of those of us who are now in our 40s.
This can be confirmed by some of our contemporaries and age mates who have risen to chair Zanu-PF provincial executive committees. These include Cde Langa (Matebeleland South), Cde Chivamba (Midlands) and Cde Mafios (Mashonaland Central).
VP Mnangagwa has massive experience in intelligence to the point where he is able to discern rubbish from substance. He has intimate knowledge of most of us who are former members of the Zanu-PF Youth League such that he cannot be hoodwinked.
He is a smart man. I am not unintelligent myself, too. The creation of a fictitious faction has been deliberately orchestrated to mask the corrupt activities and abuse of authority of some Zanu-PF leaders.
This is being done to divert the nation’s attention from the shady and crooked acts of extortion and thievery being done at the expense and abuse of Zanu-PF.
Zanu-PF doesn’t sell stolen land to home-seekers. Zanu-PF doesn’t interfere with commuter transport operations. Zanu-PF doesn’t extort vendors and market stall operators.
Crooks and ideological vagabonds provide cover to land barons, extortionists and downright thugs.
We have seen how corruption has sought to hide under the cover of factionalism with the Gamatox cabal. Criminals are intending to create a delusional factional war to hide under.
Comrades and colleagues will recall how the issues of salary-gate were uncovered at the beginning of 2014. There were executives that were drawing exorbitant packages without regard for the welfare of their organisations and stakeholders.
We now have a situation where members of a medical aid scheme are being denied treatment due to such depraved and insensitive behaviour.
At that time, the Gamatox cabal sought to protect these abusers of authority in the hope that they would be supported in their regime change agenda.
Corruption then became an arena for seeking support for the Gamatox cabal. As a result, the Gamatox cabal became a haven for robber-barons.
I have cautioned against the possible re-emergence of speculative political entrepreneurs who may seek to abuse access to political office for private and individual commercial and business gain.
This parasite appears to be re-emerging within Zanu-PF and is attempting to muddy the waters by creating diversionary contestations where there are none. Politicians need to have the strength of character and principles to never condone corruption, criminality and abuse of authority.
Being an MP doesn’t mean that one must spend the night at a police station in efforts to intimidate the police who would have arrested wrong-doers.
The whole issue of corruption and abuse of authority needs to also be understood from the perspective of President Mugabe’s remarks at the 2015 Police Presidential Graduation Parade last week. A clear instruction was issued by the one centre of power for the police to deal expeditiously with criminal malcontents.
Any politician who interferes with police operations will be guilty of undermining an instruction from the Head of State and Government.
It would be remiss of me to fail to comment on an infantile video that has been circulating on social media this week on the very same issue of the relationship between the police and some of our politicians.
This story was picked up by international media houses and splashed worldwide under the headline “Mugabe cousin ignores police roadblocks”.
I have viewed the video myself and it is extremely worrying and disconcerting.
The video has a person referred to as Mr Chiyangwa. The person looks and sounds like Phillip Chiyangwa, driving a Rolls Royce that looks like Phillip Chiyangwa’s, and guides the foreign white interviewer through a house that looks like Phillip Chiyangwa’s.
As I write this article, the video has been watched by over 43 000 people.
I have two major problems with that video. Firstly, the video shows the driver ignoring an instruction by a police officer to stop at a roadblock. That is anarchical and must never be done by any person let alone a senior leader at the level of the Central Committee.
This kind of action communicates an image that is disrespectful of national laws and the institution of the police.
Several other spoof videos have already been recorded mocking the main actor in that video.
Unfortunately, the stupidity of one member of the Zanu-PF Central Committee is then extrapolated to mean that we are all stupid and foolish as members of the Central Committee.
We are not.
The second issue is that Phillip Chiyangwa has been described as President Mugabe’s cousin. By virtue of that close association, the purported actions of Phillip Chiyangwa in that video are tarnishing the image of the President of Zimbabwe and Chairman of SADC and the AU.
Phillip Chiyangwa is not President Mugabe’s cousin; they share the same totemic identity.
Those of us who are truly related to President Mugabe know that we have a duty and obligation to the nation to protect the image and integrity of the Head of State and Government.
Phillip Chiyangwa’s relationship with the President is the same as that of Rejoice Ngwenya, the opposition activist whose membership of which formation of the multiple MDCs I am not clear of.
Phillip Chiyangwa shares the same totem as my mother, although from a different branch of the Gushungo clan. My mother is from the Chidziva branch, whilst Phillip Chiyangwa is from the Beperere branch.
They even have separate chiefs. I need to put that appropriate distance so as to minimise the contagion.
Pasi nembavha. There are no scared cows. Icho!
Patrick Zhuwao is chair of the Zhuwao Institute, an economics, development and research think tank focused on integrating socio-political dimensions into business and economic decision-making, particularly strategic planning. He can be reached at [email protected].
