adminSamuel Kadungure Senior Reporter
IF awards were to be offered for the most quoted, vocal, and public figure over the last three months, then former Zanu-PF national secretary for administration, Mr Didymus Mutasa, would win unchallenged. When the context of the publicity is analysed, one realises that all the utterances Mr Mutasa made were to the effect that he is too big to be challenged in Zanu-PF.
So brutal are the sentiments he continues to churn out that one would be forgiven for believing that even President Mugabe, owes his position to Mr Mutasa.
With gusto, Mr Mutasa has challenged not only his expulsion from the party and the constituency of Headlands by continually claiming to be the authentic secretary for administration of the “original and real Zanu-PF” but has also gone a gear higher by challenging the constitutionality of both Zanu-PF and Government by seeking recourse with the High Court as at February 3, 2015.
But what is going on?
What is the truth behind all the farce?
Mr Mutasa’s condemnation of the Zanu-PF National People’s Congress held in December 2014 as being unconstitutional must therefore be read as paucity of capacity to read politics as a monster that devours its own whenever and wherever the time is ripe.
His utterance that the President has lost his legitimacy merely because the electorate rejected him reduces him to the child that bemoans the fact that he must leave the nappies at some stage.
Mr Mutasa claims that President Mugabe has lost legitimacy, forgetting that the President is product of popular support and he is a product of unpopularity, and one wonders whether he is not in dire need of psychiatric realignment.
President Mugabe must be understood as a mere human being who has long time friends in both the party and outside. It will be recalled that President Mugabe considered Mutasa his personal friend and had no difficult saying so in public.
Alas, unknown to the President, Mr Mutasa went about haemorrhaging the social, economic and political fabric of the party and nation on the back of the President’s appreciation of a long time relationship with him.
It started with the President castigating Mr Mutasa for the first time in public when he bemoaned the fact that the administration of the party, of which he was responsible, was in a shambles at the time the Youth League Conference was being held in mid 2014.
Unknown to the him, Mr Mutasa had gone a step further to target President Mugabe himself for removal in a scheme that roped in his closest mates in both the party and government that included former Vice-President, Dr Joice Mujuru, the party information and publicity secretary, Cde Rugare Gumbo, ex-war veterans leader, Cde Jabulani Sibanda, Mashonaland East provincial chairman, Cde Ray Kaukonde, ex-Minister of Public Service, Cde Nicholas Goche, ex-Minister of Energy and Power Development, Cde Dzikamai Mavhaire, ex-Minister of State for Masvingo Provincial Affairs, Cde Bhasikiti and a coterie of hangers on.
Dr Mujuru, acting in concert with fellow conspirators that sought to see the President’s back, plotted to oust, including assassinate, the President at the Zanu-PF 6th National People’s Congress held last year.
The conspiracy has since claimed several scalps; with Cdes Mujuru, Gumbo and Sibanda hitting the ground early, and Mr Mutasa and his nephew former Mashonaland West provincial chair, Mr Temba Mliswa adding to the casualties on Tuesday.
Mr Mutasa and Mr Mliswa lost their parliamentary seats on Tuesday, making way for by-elections for the Headlands and Hurungwe West constituencies.
By now Mr Mutasa should know that Zanu-PF, like any other political party is a voluntary organisation that people choose to join, not to join and from which anyone can be fired from based on their own perceptions of that party.
The early politics of the land saw a number of parties come on stream, some in name only while the membership remained the same.
This trend remains true to this day. Some Zanu-PF members resigned to form FORD, ZUM, ZUD, MDC and some resigned from MDC at various stages to form MDC-N, MDC-M, MDC-99, MDC Renewal and UMDC.
After the formation of MDC some members in Zanu-PF resigned to form Mavambo/Kusile/Dawn and some resigned from Mavambo to form Zapu.
Given the above trend, Mr Mutasa, as the former Zanu-PF secretary for administration and, his booted colleagues, are equally free to form their own party rather.
It is therefore a matter of conjecture that Mr Mutasa continues breathing fire about the goings on in a voluntary organization, Zanu-PF that has fired and withdrawn him from Parliament when it is a matter of public record that some of the earliest politicians, who are late, such as James Chikerema, George Nyandoro, Reverend Ndabaningi Sithole, Professor Canaan Banana, Enos Nkala, Edgar Tekere, to name a few at one stage or the other fell out of favour with the leadership of what is Zanu-PF today.
With Mutasa completely unfazed while everything is crumbling around him, the question that begs asking is who really Mr Mutasa is and what is emboldening him to the extent that people are justified for wanting to wonder what will happen in Headlands when elections take place.
All the signs are such that Mr Mutasa is a spent force.
Zimbabwe and Manicaland in particular is faced with an obituary of the rise and fall of Mr Mutasa — a brutal politician who at his prime could even impose and make anyone jump at his smallest word.
Mr Mutasa has made bold the point that he will contest the Headlands seat.
As for Mutasa, he has absolutely nothing to show for the time he has been in the party, Parliament and Government and reminds anyone of the baggage of deadwood that was recycled by President Mugabe purely on the basis that they were expected to redeem themselves along the way.
The Dutch courage that Mr Mutasa is exuding will be dismissed for hot air after the conclusion of the by-election for the Headlands, which he has vowed to contest as an independent candidate.
Mr Mutasa’s status as a legislator for Headlands has been under heavy criticism and unprecedented assault as a result of his overbearing attitude toward the people. Sadly, Mr Mutasa continues to live in the shadows of a past that was only possible through sheer brute force and chicanery that the people of Headlands have since condemned as unacceptable and never to be repeated.
With the recent fall from grace where he lost the prestigious positions of being a central committee and Politburo member of Zanu-PF as well as minister of Government — Mr Mutasa does not have an iota of a chance in winning that constituency in any election whether as a Zanu-PF member, independent or some other party outside Zanu-PF.
Mr Mutasa’s legacy is a litany of shoddy performances built around imposing himself and others in the leadership of Manicaland.
Mr Mutasa knew of nothing, but imposing his will on the people in social, economic and political terms.
In characteristic fashion, he sought to extend the frontiers of his penchant for dominance.
He thus had devised a sophisticated scheme where he penetrated the traditional leadership of Makoni District, with Tandi and Makoni chieftainships suffering wreckage, noting that impositions in such leadership guaranteed Mr Mutasa the type of cover that would oil his conspiracies against the establishment.
Those close to Mutasa’s inner affinity for unbridled power confess to an agenda where he sought to further infiltrate the entire traditional leadership of the land to drum up support for his eventual ascendancy to the pinnacle of national leadership.
Zanu PF’s ability to stem the tide, when it must, against those responsible for its current needless demonisation of a peace and calm that remains a rare find in the world, must be hailed.
For that reason, Zanu-PF would be advised to leave nothing to chance notwithstanding the fact that Mr Mutasa is clutching at any straw he can find.
Outside Zanu-PF, there is Mavambo, and, Dr Simba Makoni may throw his hat in the ring, noting that he hails from the Headlands constituency.
Not to be underestimated is Mr David Tekeshe of MDC-T, a businessman with considerable clout who may also wish to register his weight.
Online Reporter