The fight for political relevance between the subscribers to the inclusive government is set for some bruising encounters of lies and politricks if President Mugabe’s Birthday celebration speech in Chinhoyi is the barometer of what is in store for Zimbabweans.
Having spent nearly 3 decades vandalising the country’s social amenities and infrastructure, President Mugabe appears awe stricken by the ramifications of the rehabilitation of the infrastructure will have on the political fortunes of Zanu PF.
As perceptive and sly as he has ever been President Mugabe is already rolling out a campaign strategy for the envisaged elections in the next 18 to 24 months which he knows will be decided on issues rather than violence.
President Mugabe took the opportunity presented by the 21st February Movement Celebration gathering to set the Zanu PF election campaign theme and parameters.
Having explained that the Global Political Agreement has yielded an inclusive Government and not a Government of national unity with political parties in its ranks retaining their structures, identity and ideology he rallied his supporters;
"Zvino kwete kuchema muchiti ko manegotiations azobuda akadai sei. Manegotiations abuda akadai nokuti takaruza zvakawanda munaMarch. Ndiko kwazvatisvitsa ikoko. Saka torega kuchemedzeka, totambira izvi zvazviri.” (Now let us not be worried about why the negotiations yielded this result. The negotiations came up with this outcome because we lost a lot of our power in the March elections. This is where the losses we suffered have landed us. Therefore lets us not cry over spilt milk and accept the reality of our losses.)
That must have taken some courage on him to publicly acknowledge and pronounce.
"Asi mukutambira zvazviri, pachirongwa chatakaita takati muhurumende umu tinoda pave nekunzwanana kwakasimba," (If you accept these outcomes you must be aware that in the Inclusive Government the agreement is that subscribers must work in total unity.)
Having reassured his supporters on the imperatives of the Inclusive government the President then set out the themes and parameters that the party must adopt and follow to recover its March losses.
“Through the inclusive Government, we hope to unite our efforts as a nation and push with renewed vigour.”
"Push in various sectors, the development programmes which are aimed at raising those sectors and in particular entities or companies that are of critical value to the country.
"Raise their productive activity so that they can produce more in mining, produce more in the manufacturing sector . . . That is what we are aiming to do as an inclusive Government.
"It’s not the work of one side. It’s the work of us all. If a minister is in charge of a particular area, say the Ministry of Health or the Ministry of Higher Education, what he is doing there . . . is really a programme of the inclusive Government. It’s not an exercise of a political party."
Whenever President Mugabe speaks of national unity he means unity under the Zanu PF vanguard.
In this instance it has dawned to him and his Party that people were disenchanted with his government’s negligence of fundamental human rights to Education and Health Services.
These are Ministries his party felt would be of no consequence to his powers and could be assigned to MDC upstarts.
The MDC in turn assigned real grafters to these Ministries and the Prime Minister and his deputies have taken a keen interest in restoring the two Ministries to their glory days.
In contrast Zanu PF’s top priority Ministries of Defence and National Security, Justice and Home Affairs are causing disaffection in the populace while the MDC top priority Ministries of Finance, Health and Education are igniting fires of hope in people from their sterling work in the first two weeks of the Inclusive Government.
President Mugabe so used to hearing praise songs in his name could not help but acknowledge the positive vibe within his exclusive party supporters brought about by the incumbency of MDC Ministers for Education, Health and Finance.
As he addressed the captive party audience there were intermittent salvos and jibes aimed at Gono, Shamu, Chinamasa and Tomana for attempting to derail the Inclusive Government momentum.
There were no such negative sentiments being murmured loud enough to get to the President’s ears, against Mohadi and Mutsekwa in Home Affairs but rather against Chihuri, Chiwenga, Zimondi, Shiri and Mnangagwa.
President Mugabe surprised the captive audience by his remark that the marvellous achievements they were witnessing in Education and Health delivery since the Inclusive Government took office were the result of cooperative government effort rather than individualised Party effort.
There were loud groans from the audience about why that sort of cooperation was not in the successive Zanu PF regimes that presided over the gradual collapse of Health and Education infrastructure and systems.
“Is the President implying that there was so much disquiet in Zanu PF that our children had to lose a whole academic year and our relatives succumbed to curable diseases while our leaders were at each other’s throat?”a reveller at the party murmured loudly.
“It then means the MDC is more coherent than Zanu PF. Chakabatana chiParty chezvimbwasungata ichi. (This party of puppets is more united then,” retorted his colleague.
Whatever the President says will not change that these puppets of the West have the power of persuasion that is so lacking in our party. How else can we explain the sudden scramble for teaching jobs and the return to work of striking medical staff? It surely is not about the US$100 allowances, interjected another.
“Mukuru achembera uyu. Uku ndiko kwatove kufa kwePart takatarisa. Vanhu veMDC vave nezvinzvimbo muhurumende vave nemukana wokuratidza chidofo change chakavanzika. Hazvizi fresh manje for our party-(This President is too old. This is the sign of the demise of our Party while we sit and watch. The MDC Ministers and those assigned to senior government position will work tirelessly to expose the shortcomings in our party which hitherto they did not have access to evidence of. This is not good for our party,” chipped in another.
These were the not so private chattering that were taking place in the audience as Mugabe delivered his speech.
As the speech lengthened there were murmurs that the President must shorten his speech so that the hungry audience could be served food.
As soon as he finished there was a stampede for the food service area where the murmurs of discontent with Mugabe continued.
“Mugabe was simply trying to expropriate credit for the revival of the Education Health and Finance Ministries and internalise it on himself but he did not fool us.
We know why the teachers, nurses and doctors were unwilling to return to work.
Like everyone else there were more lucrative means to earn money daily than to work for a whole month before getting paid a salary that was not enough to purchase five loaves of bread.
“The President ought to know that,” observed another reveller
In the past such comments were taboo in the privacy of one’s home let alone at a purely Zanu PF function.
But then Zimbabwe is in the throes of radical change and public airing of such sentiments no matter how hushed can only add impetus to the momentum of the change.
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