As health problems mount on the octogenarian Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe and revolutionary events in North Africa and The Middle East pan out, panic and pandemonium grips his faithful coterie of brainwashed former freedom and pseudo freedom fighters.
The morale of the former Liberation war fighters and their assimilated youth militia that is the spine of Zanu PF by virtue of their hegemony on the Zanu PF and by extension National power is to say the least, ravaged.
Undereducated, socially depraved and economically destitute in their majority, the former fighters have been Zanu PF political propaganda fodder for Zanu PF bigwigs from the war days to date and they have not been found wanting whenever it mattered for their party. Their high morale devolving from their unfettered control over Party and National political, military and bureaucracy is being tested to the limit by a conspiracy of unfolding global political events in countries that has similar leadership models to the one they subscribe to and the state of health of the party and national leader they trust and or fear the most depending on their rank in the party.
The 2007 post election violence in Kenya was instructive on the conduct of the March 29 2008 elections in Zimbabwe. The electoral fraud and violence that ensued after the fraud by the fraudsters was clear testimony that Zanu PF had drawn lessons from Kenya’s experiences and was determined to nip any thoughts of similar uprisings in the bud post the Zimbabwe elections rigging. Whereas in Kenya the sitting President Mwai Kibaki was declared outright winner of the elections after a day’s delay by the Electoral Commission of Kenya (ECK), in Zimbabwe Presidential results were withheld for 35 days and when they were released the sitting President Robert Mugabe had lost to challenger Morgan Tsvangirai of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change party.
Over the 35 days the results were withheld President Mugabe had privately accepted defeat to his party and expressed willingness to concede to avoid the replication of the Kenyan post election bloodshed but the former fighters and his military advisors talked him out of the concession and instead crafted the recovery plan where the electoral win by Tsvangirai could not be denied but the margin of victory would be reduced below the Constitutional prescription for one to be inaugurated as President to justify a runoff between Tsvangirai and Mugabe where Mugabe will eventually be declared triumphant after all.
To achieve that the vanquished Mugabe was forced to use his powers to set aside standing Constitutional and Electoral regulations and statutes while his military and political surrogates -some of whom had been laid off by dissolution of Parliament and defeated in re-election bids, had to be illegally reappointed to rewrite the laws to enable the unjustified rerun of the Presidential election. Demobilised Ministers Patrick Chinamasa ((Legal and Parliamentary Affairs), Emmerson Mnangagwa (Rural Housing) and the Military Commanders in particular were instrumental in executing the unholy plan to restore Mugabe as the re-elected President outside the prescribed runoff period of ‘within 21 days to which the runoff relates’.
They mobilised security forces and Zanu PF militia and went on a physical rampage against Tsvangirai’s perceived and real supporters at the same time they completely barred him from campaigning and rigged votes from military personnel in favour of Mugabe. Tsvangirai withdrew from the illegal runoff having failed to secure promised local, regional and international guarantees for his supporters and personal safety to campaign and vote freely.
Despite the withdrawal of the only contestant the runoff election was held and as intended Mugabe was announced re-elected and re-inaugurated as President within 24 hours and thereafter left for an African Unity summit in Sharm el Shaik Egypt living his supporters to carryout unrestrained retributive onslaughts against the MDC-T opponents of the President. The plan did not work out as intended when the legitimacy of President Mugabe became a subject of international debate that rejected him but it nonetheless created a bargaining position for him that resulted in the current coalition government.
Formation of the coalition government averted a humanitarian catastrophe that the nation was deeply enmeshed in at the same time it gave Zanu PF a chance to regroup and reorganise itself after the March 2008 electoral defeat had put the party in disarray.
Military Commanders who executed the revival of Mugabe with precision of marksmen had him in their armpit and he remains their front in a disguised military state that Zimbabwe today is.
The improvement of socio-economic statuses of people under the coalition government and the undisguised evidence of the perpetuation of unilateralism in defiance of the agreement that legitimised him has had a positive and emboldening impact on the morale and confidence of his party faithful to the extent that they are now at the forefront of the call for elections to foreclose the coalition government- a move they believe will restore Zanu PF to sole governorship of the country.
This despite evidence on the ground that if elections are to be staged in the country today Zanu PF will have no chance of winning them with or without the use of violence as long as voting and counting is under international supervision and not just monitoring. And without violence Zanu Pf will be annihilated by the MDC-T in any election.
The reason for the rush appears to be an unpronounced fear within the Liberation War fighters about President Mugabe’s deteriorating state of health and the contagion effect of recent political developments in Tunisia, Egypt, Ivory Coast and Libya in particular and further similar developments in the Middle East countries.
One former Liberation fighter who only joined the struggle in late 1978 mourned on Facebook that the Ivory Coast has become a French colony once again blaming African leaders for failing to protects its sovereignty under the despotic Gbagbo who has been arrested by President Quattarra who was elected six months ago by Ivorians but prevented from exercising his role by Gbagbo. Obviously the former Zimbabwe Liberation fighter has been brainwashed to believe the Zanu PF mantra that only sitting Presidents in African countries are the people’s vanguard against re-colonisation.
For Zanu PF supporters like the Liberation fighter cited to aver that Ivory Coast has reverted to a French colony with an African leader like Quattara at the helm fits in their warped party logic that has branded MDC-T leader a puppet of the West while ignoring evidence of how dependent their party has been on western and Eastern European support and donations without anyone accusing the party leadership of puppetry. This evidence of total Zanu PF brainwash is central to all political evils that have been committed and condoned by Zanu PF governments since 1980 under Mugabe’s leadership.
The prospect of Zanu PF without Mugabe is for many former Liberation fighters a frightening possibility which could at best result in the party leadership being overtaken by a younger yet more brutal and independent personality among their ranks who does not owe as much political liability to the fighters as does Mugabe or at the worst splitting the party or its total ejection from government and bureaucratic power corridors.
For the fighters its either Mugabe at the helm or nothing else hence their haste to renew his continued presidency of the country and party notwithstanding his advanced age and piling health woes.
This dangerous position the former fighters are blindly defending is not good for the future of the country, the Zanu PF party and the political aspirations of opposition parties alike. The only likely beneficiaries are the heads of the armed forces but even then it places them in direct conflict and confrontation with democracy hungry Civil Society of Zimbabwe that despite its open display of cowardice in the face of militant threats may be gaining courage from resistance results of recent in North African countries.
If the awesome Hosni Mubarak former Egyptian President and the invincible Col. Muammar Gaddafi (besieged Libyan President) have been forced out or cornered to the extent they are at present then President Mugabe who has been hitherto embarrassed by Morgan Tsvangirai will be a lightweight against a mass protest in his frail advanced age and may die from the shock of such an eventuality occurring under his sojourn. At 83 years Mubarak has suffered a stroke and is in intensive care after a day’s questioning over excesses committed under his rule. Ailing Mugabe at 87 would not survive a similar ordeal much longer hence the haste to prolong his Presidential term and in turn immunity against prosecution by any means possible being spearheaded by the former loyalist Liberation fighters in his party.
The former fighters are afraid that without Mugabe their immunity against prosecution for crimes against humanity and corruption that has been condoned may haunt them if Mugabe’s replacement refuses to be under their control to the extent that Mugabe is.
As we move closer to the end of the UN, AU and SADC imposed tumultus coalition government it is important to keep the military leadership in Zimbabwe under strict observation and surveillance to ensure that they do not engage in any political activities that will influence electoral results in any direction and in particular in a direction that keeps them in remote control of the country as they are now. If Army chiefs want to rule the country they should be allowed to declare that intent openly rather through a proxy like Mugabe or anyone in Zanu PF or MDC for that matter.
No comments:
Post a Comment