The Sunday Mail
Obert Mpofu
Congratulations to my boss, the freshly reappointed First Secretary and President of the ruling ZANU PF, His Excellency President Mnangagwa.
The people saw him worthy and his credentials resold him to lead our dear revolutionary party.
Automatically, this officially sets him for the 2023 Harmonised Elections Presidential candidature.
In the short stint of his tenure, Zimbabwe has witnessed monumental economic revival, infrastructure development, industrial retooling, extractive sector value addition, judiciary independence enhancement and wrestling of inflation, culminating in currency reforms we are witnessing.
Since his recruitment to the armed struggle, President Mnangagwa has demonstrated beyond reasonable doubt that he is a servant of the people’s cause.
His loyalty attributes to national interest are enough to justify why the Congress chose him to lead the revolutionary party.
President Mnangagwa’s leadership endorsement at the just-ended ZANU PF 7th Congress symbolically preserves Zimbabwe against the perils of the global sabotage we have suffered in the face of illegal sanctions.
His reform thrust is organically rebranding Zimbabwe as a safe investment destination, democratic nation and a respectable member of the international community to the shame of our sanction-mongering illegitimate opposition, coupled with its imperialistic allies.
It is difficult to attempt summing up his legacy without paying greater attention to his pragmatic drive for genuine nation-building.
Since 2017, he has made the issue of Gukurahundi a top priority in achieving national reconciliation and social cohesion.
Just recently, he consulted with traditional leaders across the length and breadth of the then Gukurahundi-prone areas. The traditional leaders prescribed a manual for the State’s adoption in redressing this dark side of our past.
In so doing, President Mnangagwa has demonstrated that our incongruent pasts should not be allowed to be a hindrance to securing the peace and prosperity of those to be born many years after our generation of leaders is promoted to glory.
Clearly, the man has a futuristic conscience in mapping a way for a better future for our nation.
This is why he set a vision for national development beyond his tenure in office.
He is endlessly pronouncing that under his leadership, “no one and no place will be left behind” until all of us achieve prosperity by 2030.
Apart from his pursuit for Zimbabwe to be reintegrated into the international community after enduring two decades of isolation, President Mnangagwa’s administration has been result-oriented to transform Zimbabwe into a prosperous and empowered upper-middle income economy by 2030.
Therefore, it is no accident that the entire SADC region and the rest of the continent have seen it fit to call for the unconditional removal of illegal sanctions imposed on Zimbabwe.
Surely, with such a century’s work within a single term in office, it would be ridiculous for anyone to want ZANU PF to let go of such a leader.
The outcome of the Congress has demonstrated that speculation about factionalism in ZANU PF was just but a wish of those who would want to see our party in shambles.
However, this will not be the case until we meet again at the next Congress.
For now, it’s all congratulations to President Mnangagwa for the reappointment.
“He is the Boss!!!” Amhlophe Vodloza, Makorokoto Mdawini.
Post-congress rejuvenation
The Congress was an outgrowth of our robust party restructuring process since President Mnangagwa assumed presidency of our party in 2017.
This has been noted through the new faces that have occupied leadership in the Central Committee, which is the highest decision-making body of ZANU PF. The new entries into the Central Committee pave the way for continuity of the party.
As it stands, ZANU PF has already benefited a lot from the rebranding that it has underwent through the New Dispensation.
At this point than never before, the stability of the party is being guaranteed.
With all systems set for the 2023 election as I write this piece, I can assure the world that ZANU PF will definitely get nothing less than 65 percent of the vote in the coming plebiscite. You heard me right!
Tell no lies, claim
no easy victories
We have worked hard and we will continue working harder to ensure that the motion of our current progress is uninterrupted.
To this end, I am particularly grateful that His Excellency appointed me to be ZANU PF’s Secretary for Administration once more. This is an opportunity for my office to continue enhancing the professionalisation of the party. This is yet another chance to ensure that while ZANU PF strengthens its mass-line approach, corporate governance will be reinforced across all departments of the party. Guided by the resolutions of the last National People’s Conference, it will be imperative to ensure that the culture of monitoring and evaluation in the daily running of the party is strengthened. This is where party supremacy over Government comes in.
All our ministries should be ready to acquit for all their policy deliverables. The ZANU PF-led Government owes the people of Zimbabwe the best of public goods and services.
We also owe each Zimbabwean a corrupt-free policy delivery culture.
President Mnangagwa has given us a clear template of how our party should be modernised for the betterment of national interest and vision. The secretariat at the citadel of power (ZANU PF Headquarters) has no option but to work extremely hard to ensure that the party is set for success and longevity.
Meanwhile, establishment of the Council of Elders will ensure that our institutional memory is well-preserved.
By virtue of being a party of history, we have created this important organic archive to be composed of statecraft doyens to mentor budding politicians.
This will be an important strategic repository of the party — all our wisdom from the armed struggle and party survival strategies will be banked in the newly born Elders Council.
All this is being done because we are setting up a victorious future for the nationalist legacy.
To achieve this, we must go into our revolutionary archive. This way we will re-live the teaching of Amilcar Cabral to “tell no lie and claim no easy victories”.
Dr Obert Moses Mpofu is the newly appointed ZANU PF Secretary for Administration in the Politburo.
