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AN assorted collection of failed opposition political parties gawked with gaped mouths at the numbers that flocked to Matobo District in Matabeleland South Province to celebrate President Mugabe’s 93rd birthday late last month.
They had conspired to thwart the celebrations with red flags of insensitivity, poverty and economic malady which have become the tired mantra of oppositional politics. Their efforts were a big yawn. They were shockingly ignored and beyond shock lies fear, that paralysing uncontrollable terror that can carry over into madness.
Ironically, some of the political parties have become pitifully emaciated that they could hardly give a challenge to a harem of old maids on the political tuff while the envisaged political coalition is daily remaining a distant dream, a political mirage whose realisation is proving not only difficult but painful.
People from all over the country braved the incessant rainy weather that has steadily become a characteristic of the southern part of the country’s Matobo District, famed by history for being home to the remains of colonial architect – Cecil John Rhodes from where Rhodesia – the country’s colonial name was derived.
Matobo District is not only famed for being the chosen site of Rhodes’ eternal home. It has its own spiritual significance to many a local people as it also plays host to the rain making Njelele Shrine. The soil in Matobo District is bountiful, and with a temperate climate subject to much rainfall as this year’s, an abundance of cultivated crops can easily flourish.
And the site of the birthday celebrations was juxtaposed by the magnificent balancing boulders at the Matopos that seemed to be smiling in a celebratory countenance in perpetual agreement as the country and a part of the world was gallivanting in merry-making feast with the First Family.
The balancing boulders that Matopos is has become a tourist attraction as many who have had the chance of visiting the area marvel in astonishment at how the rocks have managed with natural ease to endure the test of time, an analogy that is easily shared as many keep on inquiring how President Mugabe has managed to remain fit, intellectually coherent as well as retaining an unmatched political astuteness with only seven years shy of reaching a century in age.
Not that there are no other people older than him in the country, they are there but are not running the stressful task of being at the pinnacle of political power in a country that has attracted so many hostile voices from the plundering rich West as well as manoeuvring opposition locally.
And indeed his political shrewdness that has made him a revered African Statesman quickly manifested when he delivered his address which was a sated package of events in the party and in Government, something that clearly showed he is a man who is so much in touch with the happenings and political ranting from a clique of those that are power hungry in the rank of society and Zanu-PF in particular.
Clearly mindful of the discourse of succession in and outside his party, the President with both wit and humour hammered the points home saying those who were angling themselves in the succession matrix were lost in their political slumber and should wake up to smell the coffee. And what better platform to nail the discourse of succession in its coffin and lay it to rest than his birthday when the issue of his age has been birthing factions which he told to unite and spur the country’s economy forward.
He said it clearly and loudly that he would not bend to pressure and impose on the people of Zimbabwe a successor, besides, he said there was no vacancy as he was still in office with the mandate of the people. He shamed those that see the throne as that of a village head or a traditional chief where it has to belong to a certain clan where they think the president should groom a successor, but in his wisdom he has refused, his logical argument being that his position is a public one and whoever will take over should have the blessing not of him as an individual but the greater population of Zimbabwe.
Reading the minds of the people in his party against his age he saw the grand occasion of his birthday as a perfect platform to set the record straight saying he was not going to be pressured to appoint or groom a successor. He stressed that he would rather let the people of Zimbabwe decide through an election who they wanted to succeed him at the party congress.
“I want now to refer to our problem, problem, problem, apparently unending problem of these divisions, divisions in the party. We want a party which is tact and united. When we say let’s be united, we will be saying let’s have the unity that binds us at heart, binds us also intellectually. True, true unity. The party has a programme; the party as we are saying is based on a party constitution and party constitution provides how people can get elected from one position to another. So why, why, why want to try to circumvent the constitution,” said President Mugabe.
It was Zanu-PF Secretary for Youths Cde Kudzai Chipanga who offered a prelude to the succession debacle when he said the party was infested with over ambitious ministers, who expend their energies working on modalities of how to remove President Mugabe from power rather than pushing economic interventions as espoused in the national economic blueprint – Zim-Asset.
He said they were forgetting that they were appointed by the same President they were working on removing and called on the President to appoint some non-political ministers who he said were likely to deliver better as they were not going to occupy themselves with aligning themselves in the succession political tiffs.
While his submission made some intellectual sense in as far as service and expertise is concerned, a political analyst said it would be politically problematic in that it would create gross lack of loyalty as non-political ministers would not be subject to a political party.
The issue of succession and bloated ambitions seem to be taking precedence over economic and other social issues much to the chagrin of innocent Zimbabweans who are made to suffer from poor and sometimes lack of service as representatives in Government and in party engage in factional wars. President Mugabe, however, said he was going to make sure whoever was going to be given the mandate by the people after him would not backtrack on the land reform programme like former Vice President Joice Mujuru did. And her sensational claims in London on Wednesday that she had been endorsed by Zimbabweans to succeed President Mugabe confirmed that in her the country had a political clown whose purging was long overdue.
“All that time we were with you, that is the thinking you had? Down with you. We don’t do that,” he said.
He therefore wants his legacy of black empowerment that has made him unpopular to be carried on.
“Let us value our own country and its natural resources, work hard to develop our natural resources as we transform our socio-economic system, improve on our agriculture, use Zim-Asset, improve on our industry and commerce, improve on our infrastructure, ICT, you will see our Zimbabwe wearing a new face,” said President Mugabe.
He urged the youths not to sacrifice principle on the altar of political expediency. The attendance confirms that Zanu-PF is never divorced from the grassroots and it will take ages for the tattered opposition political parties to at least give a befitting challenge to the revolutionary party.
Online Reporter