Nothing wrong with President choosing deputies

30 Nov, 2014 - 00:11 0 Views
Nothing wrong with President choosing deputies President Mugabe

The Sunday Mail

Ndavaningi Nick Mangwana

The key to continuous success is assembling a stable, coherent and focused team.

Not anyone else’s team, but one’s own team. A unit that accounts to its principal and does not split loyalties.

A team has to pull together.

When one chooses their own team, he or she coalesces the efforts and strengths of their crew, and they walk in tandem to achieve a common goal.

If one’s team is chosen for them, there is a psychological disempowering that comes with superintending someone whose legitimacy emanates from elsewhere. It is like an arranged marriage where a bride is chosen for you.

Such a bride has her allegiances elsewhere. This creates distractions and incongruence of purpose.

This is the reason why a President or Prime Minister chooses his/her own Cabinet.

Zanu-PF has decided to empower its First Secretary and President to choose a team. This has created a massive brouhaha; ridiculous shouts of outrage from certain quarters.

They accuse the President of “entrenching power”, among many other “evils” concerning the President that we have grown accustomed to.

This is a deliberate distortion.

Those who oppose the idea of a President choosing his deputy forget or choose not to mention that the Constitution of Zimbabwe provides for just that.

A Presidential candidate will have to choose his or her two deputies.

Section 92 (2) of the Constitution reads: “Every candidate for election as President must nominate two persons to stand for election jointly with him or her as Vice-Presidents, and must designate one of those persons as his or her candidate for first Vice-President and the other as his or her candidate for second Vice-President.”

As can be seen clearly from the above section, it is the President himself who has to make the decision of who his deputies are or running mate has to be.

This is what our national Constitution says. Our party constitution is not in sync with this position.

We are currently aligning a raft of other legislations with the national Constitution. Why is aligning our own party constitution as well considered retrogressive or undemocratic?

It would be incongruous that the party chooses two party deputies for the President and yet the President chooses his own deputies outside the party for Government.

Or alternatively, the party foists deputies with whom the President has a problem.

The executive mandate of the President comes directly from the people. He accounts to the people who elected him. So, choosing both his teams at party and State levels reconciles the currently anomalous position.

Even in sports like football, every manager chooses his own team.

They choose their assistant coach, nutritionist and the whole shebang. This is done for the fundamental reason of building a harmonious team with cohesion and smooth functioning.

What’s undemocratic about doing the very same thing done by the United States, a country Zanu-PF’s detractors perceive as an epitome of democracy?

The United States has been using the system of a presidential candidate choosing his deputy from as long back as 1860.

In fact, in US elections, choosing a running mate is arguably the hardest decision a presidential candidate has to make. For a big part of the 19th century, the vice-president of the US was chosen by party bosses through a long and laborious process of negotiations and horse-trading.

The presidential candidate would have little or no input in the process. The fault lines in this system would not take long to appear.

There were VPs who did not get along with their presidents.

Those familiar with the history of that part of the world can recall that VP George Clinton boycotted President James Madison’s inauguration because of a bad relationship.

In another case, VP John L. Calhoun cast a dissenting deciding vote against Andrew Jackson’s nominee for ambassador to Britain. These are some of the events that led to the decision to let the presidential candidates themselves choose their own deputies.

Over the last three decades, the presidential candidate assembles a search committee of his or her closest advisors to help him or her pick not only the deputy but actually the person who they prefer to eventually succeed them.

Why then is the prospective amendment to the Zanu-PF constitution to deal with the same provisions considered retrogressive?

If Cabinet should only be chosen by the President, why shouldn’t he pick his top team at party level?

Why should a party leader be left to serve at the pleasure of another individual who can put the spanners in the works for the heck of it?

Events at Polokwane come to mind.

In Britain, the prime minister is the party chairman. He also chooses his deputy. In the current set-up William Hague is considered David Cameron’s deputy. He was, of course, appointed by David Cameron.

We have never seen anyone batting an eye-lid over this set-up. The same set-up obtains in Canada and Australia.

The party leader chooses deputies.

Botswana has been running the same system. Sir Ketumile Masire personally hand-picked Festus Mogae to be his deputy and eventual successor.

The latter opted for Ian Khama as his deputy and eventual successor.

Then Khama himself even tried, though unsuccessfully, to pick his brother, Tshekedi Khama.

It is not only Botswana.

We can even take that system to interesting territories: Afghanistan. Here, it was introduced by the Americans in the name of democracy and progress.

We know of Malawi, of course, as well as Ghana, among many other countries that have new constitutions that provide for that.

One wonders why when Zanu-PF does the same it is considered undemocratic.

Is it a case of damning a dog and hanging it?

One may ask, why now?

In 2008, President Mugabe and Zanu-PF suffered electoral humiliation.

Some give credit for that humbling experience to MDC-T leader Mr Morgan Tsvangirai, but those in Zanu-PF know that Zanu-PF defeated itself through bhora musango.

This was not done by the MDCs.

It was orchestrated by those closest to the President and were in the party’s higher echelons. It was a self-defeating act of sabotage.

The target was, of course, not the party per se but the President as most other candidates from councillor to MP were voted in, but the President had to retain office via a run-off.

For the last six years, Zanu-PF had not visited the treachery of bhora musango.

There was never a post-mortem even though it was well known that the fatal stab on the back was treacherously administered by the nearest and dearest. The bhora mugedhi mantra was a counter clarion call to the team to play as one and have congruence of purpose.

Again, it aimed at those on the team.

But would one ever trust the bhora musango crew?

Everyone is now rallying around the Zimbabwe Agenda for Sustainable Socio Economic Transformation and in this coming Congress, we are even calling for its accelerated implementation.

Ironically, some among us are telling the world that it will take decades to realise results.

Isn’t this another bhora musango?

If the First Secretary and President chooses his team, Zim-Asset will be implemented without madhisinyongoro both in the party and Government.

It is only when one chooses their own team that they assemble a dream team.

 

Ndavaningi Nick Mangwana is the Zanu-PF United Kingdom chair.

Share This:

Survey


We value your opinion! Take a moment to complete our survey

This will close in 20 seconds