daniel chigunwe
Nobleman Runyanga
Correspondent
Last week businessman and Government critic, Trevor Ncube, hosted academic and Southern African Political Economy Series (SAPES) Trust director, Ibbo Mandaza, on his In Conversation with Trevor YouTube platform where they discussed this year’s elections.
The two were evidently not happy with President Mnangagwa and Zanu PF’s victory last month. Mandaza has always wanted to be a kingmaker in Zimbabwe.
His submissions during the programme showed that he was very frustrated by CCC leader’s electoral loss.
Many will remember how Mandaza was one of the prime drivers of the Simba Makoni-led Mavambo-Kusile-Dawn (MKD) project which sought to replace the late former President Robert Mugabe through the new party to which many ZANU PF members were expected to flock in huge numbers ahead of the 2008 elections.
Makoni left ZANU PF ahead of the polls and Mandaza and ilk were at the forefront telling the world that he would be followed by the late national heroes, Solomon Mujuru and Dumiso Dabengwa, which was expected to see President Mugabe and ZANU PF losing the election because they would lose both leaders and grassroots members to the new outfit.
Mandaza, who was an MKD National Management Committee member, was to be disappointed as neither General Mujuru, Cde Dabengwa, any senior ZANU PF leader or ordinary member followed Makoni to the MKD.
Makoni garnered a paltry four percent of the valid presidential election votes cast that year.
During the 2008 elections, the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) won many seats to the surprise of many people as the electorate voted in protest against the hyperinflation-induced socio-economic hardships of 2006 to 2008.
Mandaza and other like-minded and self-hating Zimbabweans expected that the 2013 elections would see the MDC building on its 2008 gains to unseat ZANU PF.
When this did not happen, Mandaza was among those who claimed that President Mugabe and ZANU PF had rigged the elections but to this day, they have failed to adduce irrefutable evidence to back their accusations.
Following the massive drubbing of the late former MDC leader, Morgan Tsvangirai and his party by former President Mugabe and ZANU PF in 2013, it became very clear to the opposition’s sponsors and handlers that the MDC could not unseat ZANU PF from power.
They had learnt that the combination of sanctions against the innocent electorate and years of limitless funding to the opposition had failed to achieve the desired result.
Ever the relevance and attention-seeking and wannabe kingmaker, Mandaza and Tony Reeler mulled and pushed the idea of a National Transitional Authority (NTA) to get the unelectable and unelected Chamisa into power through the backdoor before the 2018 polls and thereby gaining themselves some recognition.
They expected that Chamisa would jump at the opportunity but they were disappointed. Only Tendai Biti showed some interest more out of the relations that he enjoys with Mandaza than the proposal’s merit.
During the show, Mandaza indicated that he was pushing for an International Conference on Zimbabwe.
To him, Chamisa, the MDC Alliance and the CCC electoral losses in 2018 and 2023 were and are crises meriting the attention of the world as an emergency.
He disclosed that he wished to use the planned meeting to push for South African President, Cyril Ramaphosa to play a key role in getting Chamisa into power.
It will be remembered that over the past years, the British Parliament and Government have been pushing for the same.
It appears that they learnt nothing from the days of President Thabo Mbeki and Tony Blair when the latter asked the former to assist in the invasion of Zimbabwe. President Mbeki would have none of it and flatly refused.
It is against the foregoing background that Zimbabweans and other people should consume Mandaza’s ramblings in the show.
To understand Mandaza’s frustration with President Mnangagwa’s win, one has to listen to him blatantly lying that the President rushed to be inaugurated to test the Southern African Development Community (SADC).
What madness! What stupidity!
If a Presidential election candidate wins, the next logical thing to do is taking the oath of office so that he can form a Government and serve his people, nation and country. He does not have to wait to indulge the self-styled and self-appointed kingmakers like Mandaza.
The Nevers Mumba-led SADC Election Observer Mission (SEOM) with the help of CCC activist, Elijah Munyuki, who was smuggled into the mission, and approval of the SADC Organ on Politics, Defence and Security Chair and Zambian President, Hakainde Hichilema wrote a one-sided report which was meant to justify Chamisa’s calls for fresh election.
The report is currently in the hands of SADC in Botswana pending deliberation on it by a SADC Summit.
This does not stop life in Zimbabwe. Observers are just that – observers. They do not tell how subject countries should run their affairs after an election.
Therefore, Mandaza’s impression that any pronouncements by SADC on the election would create conditions for an NTA is desperation and baseless wishful thinking.
Perhaps the most entertaining part of Mandaza’s submission was the barefaced lie that President Mnangagwa sent emissaries to Chamisa in March this year asking him to agree to hold elections in abeyance for two years after which he would hand over power to the opposition leader.
President Mnangagwa is in power as a ZANU PF deployee. There is no way that he would cut strange deals with the opposition outside of the ZANU PF and the national Constitution.
Since 24 November 2017, when he was first sworn in, President Mnangagwa has been working very hard for his people and party. That is why he won.
He cannot therefore put all that work to waste by handing over power to the opposition. This would be akin to handing the country back to Britain.
Mandaza and Ncube self-deceivingly agreed that President Mnangagwa would hand over power to Chamisa because he has been “battered” and “tired.”
If one were to juxtapose the 81-year-old President Mnangagwa and the 75-year old Mandaza, a visitor from Mars would easily point to Mandaza as the elder one.
Since the announcement of the Presidential election results, Mandaza has been giving the impression that he knows something that is cooking against President Mnangagwa from SADC.
He has sought to appear so well placed and influential in the region by claiming to be in contact with regional Foreign Ministers.
If he is so well-placed, why would he embarrass himself with the childish lie that the President approached Chamisa and the speculation that he would hand over power because he is tired?
Some gullible CCC supporters are pinning their hopes for an election rerun on some of Mandaza’s misleading tweets at a time that even Chamisa himself knows that the only time that he will get a chance to contest for Zimbabwe’s presidency is in 2028 because he lost fairly and squarely.
Mandaza is so desperate that one thing that came out throughout the conversation was his dying wish that the US gamble of trying to use the SEOM to get Chamisa into power would miraculously end in an NTA.
He may have been instrumental in crafting some of the founding documents of the SADC Organ on Politics, Defence and Security, but he has no influence over the bloc or organ.
His constant reference to the crafting of the documents betrays his wish to be regarded as having influence in the bloc’s decision on the SEOM report.
He should bear in mind that SADC can only advise and recommend but cannot tell Zimbabwe how to run her elections.
It has no power to order fresh polls to placate a childish Chamisa who is throwing toys out of the pram over a loss that was sure to come given the way he handled candidate selection in his party and how his councillors treated the urban electorate.
Other people who have watched the conversation have been asking why Mandaza is so desperate.
Back in the 1980s and 90s, he was a man of quite some means. He ran the Southern African Political Economy Series magazine, The Sunday Mirror and The Daily Mirror newspaper titles.
He also owned the Southern African Printing and Publishing House (SAPPHO) which was the printer and publisher of the newspapers and the magazine. The SAPES Trust published many books mostly from academics and researchers.
In addition to this, he ran a thriving farm called Panhowe in the Mazowe area. Most of all this glorious past is now history.
All that remains is the Belgravia premises from where he regularly hosts other anti-Government elements to criticise President Mnangagwa and Government over one policy or the other.
At the same premises is a struggling restaurant.
It is against this background that one understands that Mandaza’s efforts are born of an economic struggle to get a meal on the table.
He hopes that in the very unlikely event of the NTA getting buyers and being implemented, Western funders who sustained most of his operations in the past, will look favourably at him again and loosen their purse strings.
Zimbabweans should not be deceived by Mandaza’s overtures and think that he is doing it to serve them. He is working hard for his own stomach.
Zimbabweans should choose partnering President Mnangagwa in working for and building their own country instead of being used by the likes of Chamisa and Mandaza.
Online Reporter