The Sunday Mail
McNorman B. Chitongo
I would like to start by saluting and thanking the Editor of this newspaper for according a nonentity like me a chance to air the concerns and position of the ordinary devotee of the ruling party.
Being an ordinary card-carrying member of Zanu-PF means I do not hold any executive position at any level in the party.
I am a mere family member in Harare and whose main duties include mobilising people to join the party as well as to vote for the party.
I am one of the many millions who are not paid for preaching the true values of Zanu-PF to other citizens.
I am one of the many millions who wake up early in the morning and queue to cast a vote for Zanu-PF during elections and do not expect to be thanked or rewarded for doing that.
We do it wholeheartedly, in the spirit of patriotism and belonging.
You can choose to call us any name that you find appropriate, povo, ruzhinji, majority, grassroots, etcetera, but the fact here is that we, in our millions, form the greatest group of the party – the electorate. All these names translate to one solid meaning: we are the pillars of the party and there is no question about that.
We elect people into positions.
What we expect at the end of the day is transparency, accountability and positive results. We want these results so that we can use them as a carrot to lure new members and recall the lost ones.
The problem, however, emerges when we don’t have these results.
What we are getting when we send representatives to Parliament is not results, but cases of self-aggrandisement, disobedience and abuse of office.
They vanish from the ground, only to read about them in the newspapers, claiming so many millions of dollars from so and so after having done this and that deal in a helicopter. Some of us down here do not have uncles in high positions who we can seek protection or political favours from.
Even if I had an uncle in the highest structures, I would never use that as a permit to abuse other party members or snatch people’s property.
A great number don’t seem to care for the ordinary voter down here as they are busy jostling for positions to further enrich themselves at the expense of the country.
At the end of the day, it is our hard-working President who gets the blame when people in positions underperform.
If it were possible to right-click and copy his principles, we could paste them in the hollow minds of these position-holders.
The Zimbabwe Agenda for Sustainable Socio-Economic Transformation was not drawn up to be read out to the people. Rather it is there to be implemented and it takes an innovative community leader or position-holder to set the pace and start initiatives forged along this blueprint.
There are very few offices that are visible on the radar of progress as most of them are preaching processes with no results and that is sabotage.
It is counter-productive.
People are leaving their portfolios unattended only to focus on occupying positions that are not vacant and all this is being done on heavily funded factional lines.
This dirty money motivates them to fight for their factional masters to the extent of even insulting our President and his family. Like First Lady Amai Grace Mugabe, the povo will call a spade a spade.
The undivided nomination and consequent mass endorsement of Amai Mugabe to lead the Women’s League is surely a historic episode worth rejoicing, at least from a grassroots point of view.
In Zanu-PF, we know that we are a family and President Mugabe is our father, and Amai Mugabe our mother. No one can contest that.
It is so embarrassing that we have some elements in the family who claim to be steadfast cadres yet they are unhappy with Amai Mugabe’s entry into mainstream politics.
A few of them have clearly exhibited their abhorrence while others pretend to like the First Lady.
They seem to dislike her because she has no sacred cows. She whips them all into line.
I had the opportunity to attend six of Amai Mugabe’s “Meet the People” rallies.
As I mentioned earlier, I do not hold any position in the party . . . I self-sponsored all my trips.
I had the pleasure of attending her inaugural rally in Chinhoyi as well as subsequent ones in the Midlands, Masvingo, Harare, Mashonaland Central and Mashonaland East.
I saw a new lease of life engulfing our Zanu-PF family during all these rallies.
I, like others, regained confidence that our party was healing and coming together after suffering from the cancer of factionalism.
I know of a rural district that has two Zanu-PF Members of Parliament who are both qualified civil engineers but cannot jointly plan refurbishing the only strip road connecting their poor constituencies to the rest of Zimbabwe.
All this is because of factionalism.
What a shame!
I noticed, during the First Lady’s rallies, that Amai has us, the grassroots, at heart. Unlike the traditional politician, she never promised golden freebies.
Instead, she encouraged us to be innovative and work for self-sustenance. She gave out the little seed she had and encouraged women to venture into saleable farming.
We were used to politicians who come and promise us gold, milk and honey, only to disappear in their 4x4s immediately after sealing victory in the elections.
Some do not even come back just to thank the people for voting for them.
They become untouchable and begin to see themselves as chiefs rather than representatives of the people.
They forget that they are mere messengers who can be recalled any time.
No amount of money can buy away our patriotism and genuine loyalty to Zanu-PF.
When serious allegations of such as corruption or espionage are made against a person holding a trusted office, we, the povo, expect action to be taken forthwith, regardless of the person’s gender, position or credentials.
Vice-President Mujuru should be accountable for her actions.
Then you find a grown man like Jabulani Sibanda springing into an overdrive crusade of defending the VP, to the extent of insulting the First Lady and our people-chosen President, expecting to get away with it.
No one is greater than the party.
One must dance to the music they composed during their days of corruption and extortion.
It is not as though the povo was not aware of some of the dirty money-making methods.
It is only that such issues were deemed hot for public discussion.
Cde Jabu is an adult, but his demeanour is mind-boggling. He is trying to use fire to burn the rains before they reach the ground.
Mission impossible.
The povo are with Amai Mugabe in her quest to bring stability and accountability back into the party.
Are you a true war veteran yourself, Cde Jabu? Where and when exactly did you hold a gun and fight the liberation struggle?
Game over, Cde.
We, the povo, are with Amai in her quest to unite the party and rid it of factionalism.
Our war veterans are respectable people who bear a rich history.
They are custodians of our heritage and no one should drag their reputation through the mud.
