Chronicle Editor
Tichaona Zindoga Political Editor—
It’s all gold, green, red and black — the revolutionary colours of the ruling Zanu-PF — in the ancient city of Masvingo, where the party is holding its 16th Annual People’s Conference.Business is at a standstill.
All eyes, local and international, are on the party of Government and how the annual indaba pans out.
Of particular interest is how the party is going to resolve the nagging issues affecting it as an organisation and the challenges that the country that it presides over is facing.
To a larger extent, much attention is trained on the health of the party.
It is a party that, when it catches a cold, the country sneezes.
It is the single largest private club on the land, the men and women that determine the course of the country, directing Zimbabwe’s fate with its hands in a dance of political and economic moves.
The state of the party is being questioned, not least by the organisation’s First Secretary, President Mugabe himself.
How the party has acquitted itself in the year 2016 is a matter of serious concern — perhaps for the first time since 2014 — when a cabal led by former Vice President Joice Mujuru threatened to upend the status quo.
You do not have to look any further than President Mugabe’s foreboding speech during the Central Committee meeting in Harare on Wednesday.
President Mugabe is unhappy with the state of affairs in the organisation and the behaviour of its leaders.
There is dirt all over the place, it reeks.
There is scheming and plotting and backbiting.
Said President Mugabe: “For our party, 2016 has been quite disturbing too. We failed, as leaders, in some cases to demonstrate high levels of maturity and discipline expected of us.
“I have said this before that there is nothing wrong in expressing an ambition or aspiring for leadership positions, or for higher offices in the party.
“But I have, however, also frowned upon shameless and unbridled ambition to ride roughshod over others.
“We should not allow ourselves to be used as pawns by others seeking to advance their own narrow agendas at the expense of serving the larger interests of the party and the people.
“Dirty politics should never be countenanced in our party. The tradition of our party is never one of bickering over party positions.
“It has always been one where leaders are elected by the people, on the basis of their track record of performance. The party needs revolutionary leaders and revolutionary cadres, who are always alive to their responsibilities as leaders of a party of liberation.”
It should be stated that what shocks and nauseates the party and Government leader mortifies and disgusts the whole country.
We have watched the drama and the dirty linen being tossed about, and it is truly hideous.
Something is not right. Something must give.
Let it be stated here and now that many people across the country, with faith firmly reposed in the ruling party, do not particularly care about the so-called factions in the ruling party.
It is known too well that the factions are no more than personality clashes and narrow pursuits of power.
There are people with unbridled ambitions.
There are impatient people.
There are noisemakers and troublemakers.
There are spoilers.
People with inflated egos, overrated, bigoted individuals and small-minded politicians all making the mad cast that Zanu-PF has projected itself to be — even when it is just a show of contending cliques.
These cliques in their dirty games are not only putting the name of the party into disrepute: they are also diverting attention from the real bread and butter issues that a ruling party should be focusing on.
The party should be focusing on delivering on Zim-Asset but, in 2016, it has not shown itself to be doing so.
The buzzwords have been factionalism and succession. New words and terminologies have entered the lexicon.
Some politicians in Zanu-PF have enchanted the world with their shameless dirty games and some members have openly defied the President by way of utterances and actions that go against the wise counsel of the leader regarding how disputes ought to be addressed by comrades and within the revolutionary movement.
President Mugabe has warned about the divisive use and abuse of social media but some well-known characters happily tweet their defiance away.
Clandestine meetings continue to be held, plotting.
All this has not only, as mentioned above, detracted from the core mandate of the ruling party, but has also given a dangerous suggestion that President Mugabe is no longer in control of the ruling party.
Yes, the opponents of President Mugabe proclaim from rooftops that he is no longer in control of his party and that it’s a dog-eat-dog situation.
It is for this reason that Masvingo should solve the niggling issues once and for all.
It is time to bite the bullet.
President Mugabe cannot, and should not, be repeating issues and concerns and warnings and exhortations all the time. The party cannot afford to have its name brought into disrepute, and much worse, be bogged down by individuals pursuing selfish agendas.
Factionalism must fall — and people— the ordinary members and the generality of Zimbabweans, really do not care whose ox is gored at the end of the day.
All they need is to see a functional party of Government.
Everyone is alive to the fact that a warring Zanu-PF makes a bad government.
Not only that, a warring Zanu-PF risks plunging the country into strife of the worst kind, something that we wouldn’t expect this time in history.
So high are the stakes.
They cannot be allowed to escalate.
Tackling factionalism is not going to be easy, either, just as purging the body of toxins is a dirty and sometimes painful exercise.
But it also means enforcing discipline.
No individual is bigger than an institution of Zanu-PF’s stature and pedigree and the party has overcome schisms before in its half a century of existence.
And if the fear is that it is better to keep some individuals in the tent peeing outside (when actually they pee all over the place) than have them outside peeing in — it is better now — once and for all – to cut the offending peeing organ.
It has to be clinical.
Online Reporter