Editorial Comment: As we head towards congress…

03 Aug, 2014 - 06:08 0 Views

The Sunday Mail

The Zanu-PF Women’s and Youth League conferences this month have rightly attracted much media attention.

We say rightly because as the ruling party, whoever is chosen as a leader carries a national responsibility.

The Women’s and Youth leagues have historically been the vanguard of the revolutionary party.

Women constitute the majority of the population and are thus a major demographic group whose interests should form the basis of much of the national agenda.

On the other hand, the youth — pardon the cliché — are the country’s future and it was young men and women, boys and girls, who prosecuted the liberation struggle that culminated in Zimbabwe’s Independence in 1980.

It therefore goes without saying that the two conferences are of great importance.

But even more important is the fact that these conferences are leading up to Zanu-PF’s Congress in December this year.

It is an elective congress, and one which will essentially set the line-up of the team that will lead the 2018 elections, when Zanu-PF’s current mandate will again be put to the test.

What is worrying, however, is the apparent fixation with posts.

There is much horse-trading, jockeying, lobbying and scheming going on right now as people jostle for posts in the party, both at the pivotal conferences and at congress.

Of course, we expect politicians to play tug-of-war as that is their natural inclination.

Nonetheless, the nation expects more than just political jostling for prizes. We expect to see and hear what prospective leaders have to offer.

It is not enough to simply tell us that one has been in the party long enough — though commitment to the cause is important — to merit a high post in Zanu-PF.

They must be showing us what it is they bring to the table within the context of national development. The Zanu-PF Government has given the country the Zim-Asset economic blueprint, which should take the nation through from 2013 to 2018 on a path of sustainable socio-economic transformation.

How many of the prospective leaders who are eyeing posts at the conferences and congress have actually read this document?

How many of them have understood and know what is required of them?

How many of them are actively implementing it for the good of the entire nation?

And related to and beyond Zim-Asset, we need to know what practicable vision prospective leaders have for Zimbabwe.

Zimbabweans often pride themselves on being among the most educated people in the world and the most literate in Africa. Let us see this high level of enlightenment reflecting on our national politics and in our choice of leaders.

Many a time, Zanu-PF officials have ridiculed opposition leader Mr Morgan Tsvangirai for his low level of formal education, pointing out that such an enlightened populace cannot be led by a dunce.

The same should apply to Zanu-PF itself. The party should interrogate its leadership criteria and give the nation leaders who are progressive, innovative and development-oriented.

And through it all, the party should not negate those founding values that have made it the dominant player on the local political scene for so long: nationalism and people-centeredness.

This is because it is not sufficient to simply have leaders who have a string of university accolades on their business cards — they should also have the nation at heart.

For such a cadre of leaders to hold sway now and into the future, the electorate must scrutinise all candidates and elect those who they think can best take Zanu-PF and Zimbabwe forward.

The electorate should not be swayed by vote-buying, influence-peddling and brazen threats by would-be leaders.

It is every single person’s patriotic duty to promote a leadership that has Zimbabwe and Zimbabweans at heart.

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