Gideon Gono is here to stay: President Mugabe

Zanu PF financial Henchman Dr Gideon Gono and impressed master President Mugabe


The temptation to speak in absolutes is a politicking technique most seasoned politicians find difficult to resist in a public show of their political muscle.

Ian Smith the notorious Rhodesian rebel leader whose unilateral declaration of independence delayed our freedom from colonial bondage by a decade and half infamously declared that the country would never realise black majority rule in his lifetime let alone in a thousand years.

Within 15 years of so authoritatively decreeing his regime was deposed and replaced by a black dominated regime which not only retired him from active politics but also condemned him to a political nonentity till his death in November 2007.

Lately it has been President Mugabe who has been issuing political decrees with reckless abandon none of which he has really managed to keep in force.

When in 1999 the MDC took him up on his 1987challenge for the ZCTU to re-constitute itself as a political party so that he could deal with the members in a political manner he had used to silence other political competitors in the country he declared that the MDC would never win an election during his lifetime.

Hardly a year after its formation the MDC won a shocking 57 of the 120 contested parliamentary seats and then only because there was widespread violence and ballot tempering by the elections commission and Zanu PF.

After recovering from the 2000 parliamentary electoral setback and the 2001 Presidential election that he scrapped through thanks to a compromised electoral process Mugabe decreed that the MDC was an enemy of the State which he would work to ensure is eradicated.

In the 2005 parliamentary elections Mugabe and his Zanu PF party recovered from the 2000 setback and consolidated his hegemony by fast tracking a raft of legislative statutes through parliament with the aim of consolidating power.

He castigated the MDC leader as a Western puppet for the illegal regime change agenda and decreed that sanctions imposed on Zanu PF leadership would achieve nothing as the country was united behind his leadership and would overcome the challenges of the targeted travel bans on his lieutenants.

Hardly two years down the line he was admitting that the sanctions were the single most important impediment for his government to deliver at expected levels.
Still he maintained that the MDC leader was the conduit being used by western imperialists to sabotage his government but he would never allow the MDC a sniff at the power during his lifetime.

Haalume was the in slogan among his supporters.

In March 2008 Mugabe was humiliated in presidential elections by the so called puppet MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai and spent 35 days pondering what to do with the defeat until he secured military backing to retain power.

The declaration that the MDC would never win elections in Zimbabwe during his lifetime had gone up in smoke and with it numerous declarations he had made about his relations with the MDC and the rest of the world.

All the contentious issues he had bottled up and declared not negotiable like the Constitution making process, the sharing of power with political opponents, planned land reforms, democratisation of governance, upholding of human rights and the rule of law returned to haunt him in defeat and he was forced to the negotiating table to regain lost leadership legitimacy.

Now that he has regained legitimacy through a flawed political settlement presided over by Sadc he is back in the comfort zone and making outrageous declarations about how the government will operate.

Ever since 15 September 2008 when President Mugabe signed away fundamental chunks of his draconian powers in the tripartite political settlement that formed the coalition government on 13 February 2009 President Mugabe has been trying to project an image that says nothing has changed in the powers he commands without much success.

He unilaterally appointed 10 Provincial governors from his Zanu PF party ranks despite agreeing to sharing power with coalition partners from the MDC and has been forced to relinquish six of the positions to the partners.

He tried to grab all the ministries that he felt were of material consequence to exercising power but was forced to relinquish some critical functions to the MDC which are turning out to be serious threats to his political relevance as they deliver on social and economic expectations of the majority.

He unilaterally appointed the RBZ Governor, the Attorney General and Permanent Secretaries without consulting coalition partners and has been humiliated by the contest that ensued over the appointments resulting in him spending months to convince his partners on permanent Secretaries appointments but not without conceding that they would not be expected to work on partisan political affiliation persuasions.

The matter of the RBZ governor and the AG are now embarrassingly before SADC for arbitration and it says a lot about the power the President still wields if he cannot independently guarantee that whatever appointment he approves will not invite arbitration and or contestation from the partners in the coalition government.

In a humiliating attempt to pre-empt the outcome of the disputed Reserve Bank Governor’s illegal appointment from the Sadc arbitration process he has been forced to declare that the incumbent Dr Gideon Gono is not going anywhere.

But the MD is fully aware of the political weaknesses of Mugabe and Zanu PF in the coalition government and is pressing ahead with the arbitration process.

At the micro level the MDC is using influential Finance Minister Tendai Biti to push for reforms at the central bank that will severely curtail the governor’s draconian powers and reduce his ability to prop up the waning fortunes of Zanu PF.

And haven’t we had the never ever declarations before from President Mugabe only to witness him do the exact opposite under intense political pressure from the MDC.

Both Gideon Gono and Mugabe are on their way out of power and influence whether or not they like it. If Mugabe wants to sink together with his personal banker and confidante so be it.