Sundaymail Editor
Retired Major Action Mandingo
HAPPY New Year beloved Zimbabweans.
Hope you had a wonderful festive season. I wish you a prosperous and blessed 2023.
Unfortunately, there is no longer much time for niceties.
We have to hit the ground running because the crazy season is already with us.
Let us brace ourselves for cartoon character drama, exaggerations, tomfoolery and outright lies.
A congregation of fools and liars
For the opposition leaders, this is the season to line their pockets with dirty funds that will be thrown around by gullible sponsors and sympathisers.
There is always a fool somewhere who still thinks regime change is possible in Zimbabwe.
They often say a fool and his money are soon parted.
For civil society, this is the season to create a bit of drama to gain some visibility and credibility so that their days to cause mayhem in the country are increased.
There is always someone prepared to listen and believe the lies.
Even journalists will join in and cook up stories to stoke the fire in the hope of winning a few dirty awards from some Western-sponsored organisations.
As usual, blind opposition supporters will be used as pawns during this crazy season.
Some will be used to try and authenticate the lies and drama. Others will be used to fan and fake violence.
Yet others will actually fake injuries and even death.
The courageous ones will claim to have been abducted and beaten up by some men in dark glasses driving vehicles with no number plates.
Some will be made to believe that now is the time, and will engage in all sorts of thuggery in the hope that they can smuggle their leaders into power.
Others will take to social media and spread all manner of lies and, of course, as usual, the opposition hoodlums will take the opportunity to get dirty money to slosh themselves.
It is indeed a crazy season and let us get ready for a rough ride.
Of course, we have seen it all in the past and there is no reason to freak out.
As they say, being forewarned is being forearmed.
As a veteran soldier, I have seen it all, and all I am doing is to expose this crazy season so that, when the madness hits town, we will not be caught off-guard.
ZANU PF refused to crack, and the President and the Vice President refused to fight
Preparations for this crazy season were put into motion a few weeks before the ZANU PF Congress, which was held at the end of October 2022.
The privately owned media went all out, spreading lies about new factions in ZANU PF.
They predicted that the congress would be ZANU PF’s waterloo.
The lies did not end there.
The anti-Zimbabwe media added some spice to the lies by creating a fictitious clash between President Mnangagwa and Vice President Chiwenga.
They cooked all sorts of conspiracy theories that VP Chiwenga was plotting to overthrow President Mnangagwa.
The opposition celebrated, thinking this would be the straw that would break the camel’s back.
Let me repeat this for the umpteenth time – some of us were in the thick of things during Operation Restore Legacy in November 2017 and when we hear people hallucinating that President Mnangagwa will one day clash with VP Chiwenga, we laugh our lungs out.
If only people knew what we know!
One day, we will get the permission to tell this story in full, and fools will understand why it is daydreaming to think the two veteran politicians will one day turn against each other.
Confused Chamisa at sixes and sevens
When ZANU PF refused to die and President Mnangagwa and VP Chiwenga refused to fight, Nelson Chamisa of the MDC, now known as CCC, was not only deflated but left in a quandary.
Chamisa was praying for a divided ZANU-PF and hoping for a fight between the President and his VP.
He thought this was his sure way to State House.
He has nothing to show other than countless rallies, where he spewed empty promises.
Chamisa and his ever-dwindling sponsors are really, really scared.
The rate at which Zimbabwe is growing economically is scaring all prophets of doom. No wonder Chamisa is now sending many conflicting signals about the forthcoming elections.
“I will win” and then “I won’t contest”.
As the crazy season gathers momentum, Chamisa is already showing that he is being haunted by the question that has always haunted the MDC – to contest or not to contest in the forthcoming elections?
Speaking at the Bulawayo Press Club in 2020, Chamisa clearly showed that he is a troubled man, indicating that his party would not participate in the 2023 elections.
He said: “There can never be a 2023 election without resolving the 2018 outcome. Why must we continue when 2018 is not concluded? We will not waste our time for 2023 without resolving 2018 . . . if you are putting hope in 2023, you might as well forget about elections in Zimbabwe.”
Chamisa vowed that he would not participate in the 2023 elections before what he called electoral reforms were effected.
His supporters cheered him, but soon he started singing a different tune.
No one knows what had gotten into the young man, but he showed what others call reckless bravado a few months ago when he declared: “I will win with or without reforms.”
Speaking after by-elections in six wards in Chinhoyi, he added: “Against odds, we are going to win elections . . . Some are asking how we will win polls, but I have said we have done it before.”
Hallucinations about talking to the SADC, AU and the UN
In August 2022, while speaking at Nyamhunga Stadium, Chamisa again changed the story: “We expect reforms to be done before elections . . . I am talking to the UN (United Nations), SADC (Southern African Development Community) and AU (African Union) because where we are going, UN should be there to supervise our elections.”
Kkikikiki! Kikikiki!
Chamisa talking to the UN, SADC and AU?
Talking to these organisations as who?
And talking about what?
While Chamisa was making these claims, developments on the ground exposed his lies.
SADC and the AU have over the past few months thrown their weight behind Zimbabwe.
Without mincing their words, they have told Chamisa’s sponsors to lift their illegal sanctions against Zimbabwe.
It is as if they were singing a song from a ZANU PF hymnbook.
As for the UN, the organisation has made its position on Zimbabwe very clear.
In October 2021, the UN envoy on unilateral coercive measures, Professor Alena Douhan, after spending two weeks in Zimbabwe investigating the sanctions on the country, said “the US should cease the state of national emergency regarding Zimbabwe”, as the sanctions had “exacerbated the pre-existing economic and humanitarian crisis, inhibiting the building of essential infrastructure and international institutional cooperation”.
If that message was not loud and clear, on April 22, 2022, the UN resident and humanitarian coordinator in Zimbabwe, Mr Edward Kallon, hammered the point home again.
“My position is very clear: Zimbabwe needs to reproduce itself and it can only do that if the sanctions regime is lifted. It is critical that the scourge around the people of Zimbabwe be removed because what I have learnt since I arrived here is that sanctions are impacting heavily on the ordinary Zimbabweans. If Zimbabwe is allowed to reproduce itself, it can collect all the taxes it requires, it can pay all its arrears.”
Clearly, SADC, the AU and the UN have shown unwavering solidarity with Zimbabwe.
Which SADC, which AU and which UN was Chamisa claiming to have spoken to?
Looks like the young man is a strong candidate for Ngomahuru Psychiatric Hospital.
As he continued suffering from the political fits, he started seeing shadows.
He has told those who still care to listen to his mumbo jumbo that he has failed to form structures for his party because ZANU PF is infiltrating his political outfit.
At the beginning of November 2022, he claimed ZANU PF was training operatives and paying them to destabilise his party.
ZANU PF will not reform itself out of power
I have always told people that ZANU PF chiwororo (ZANU PF is unstoppable).
The party is fast becoming ubiquitous.
You see it everywhere and you smell it everywhere.
One reader commented: “Seeing shadows everywhere. Worrying about baseless conspiracies. That’s what happens when the reality of an emphatic defeat sets in. A resounding loss awaits the little despot who thinks normal Zimbabweans can vote for a constitution-less and structure-less association.”
As for claims about infiltration, well don’t they say politics is dirty?
If Chamisa’s party is that weak, then it shall be the playground for all manner of dirty politics.
My father would say: “Wotochama mwanangu! Hapana wekuchemera.”
In simple English, they say it is a dog-eat-dog affair in politics.
While Chamisa continues squeaking like a rat, the ZANU PF juggernaut is on the roll.
A few days ago, the National Assembly passed the Private Voluntary Organisation Amendment Bill.
Whether the opposition likes it or not, this Bill will soon become law and the country’s enemies will be dealt with decisively.
Already, non-governmental organisations are crying foul, saying the Bill will close the civic space, but crying is all they can do.
ZANU PF is not in the habit of stopping its train just because a few dogs are barking here and there.
Let me repeat – ZANU PF will never reform itself out of power. Whatever so-called electoral reforms Chamisa and his sponsors are dreaming of will not happen before the forthcoming elections.
The late former opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, who was a much better politician than the confused Chamisa, failed to force ZANU PF to effect the so-called reforms.
Chamisa should stop hallucinating.
Online Reporter