Chronicle Editor
This time last week, there was an interesting development in South Africa. Newspapers had a festival celebrating that the infamous Gupta family — which is linked to president Jacob Zuma — were being investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI). The South African media have decided to brand the Gupta family as the country’s Enemy Number One because of what appears to be a corrupting influence that the rich family has had on president Zuma.
We are told that the family gets what they want from the State in terms of lucrative deals and contracts because of the proximity to president Zuma and his family, including sons Duduzane and Edward. There have been attempts to link President Zuma’s ex-wife and current aspirant for the office of state president, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, to the Guptas but the link has been tenuous.
But president Zuma is neck deep in the Gupta. He has not denied links to the influential family, either, but pleads innocent of any corrupting or irregular relationship. Which is difficult, of course. His political rivals and media have been digging and bringing up the dirt on president Zuma.
A whole cache of emails and communications have been leaked to show how president Zuma is “captured” — and it is actually a whole subject that came up last year when the then Public Protector Thuli Madonsela produced a damning report alleging “State capture” and urging the president to establish an inquiry into the subject.
So deep and dirty has been the issue that some circles have nicknamed president Zuma as “Zupta”. We are in no way trying to validate any narrative. That’s a purely South African issue to deal with. It is not hard, though, to notice and indeed note that the whole issue is political, deeply so and within the matrix of succession.
The ruling ANC is holding its elective congress in December and the stakes are high. Much of the mudslinging against president Zuma is actually aimed at his preferred successor, Dlamini Zuma and it is hoped that she will rub onto the muck and she indeed has suffered considerably.
Part of the discrediting campaign of Dlamini Zuma is to portray her envisaged tenure as president Zuma’s rule by proxy. It is also speculated that if she becomes president then she will protect her former husband from criminal prosecution. President Zuma has a whopping more than 700 corruption charges over his head.
There are some people who would want to see him rot in prison. And the issue is complicated.
It’s political.
Then comes in the FBI.
One paper celebrated that the Guptas had “nowhere to run” and another said foreigners were doing the job of South African police and authorities. With the focus on destroying the Guptas and president Zuma — and the Gupta business empire has been brought down massively — it seems the South African media missed a key thing: that of foreign powers interfering in the internal affairs of the republic!
And if you go deeper, you will realise that the “referral” to FBI was done by one Peter Hain who has also asked British authorities to sanction banks that have been dealing with the Guptas.
Peter Hain, is a former British minister and, for all that care to remember, was also meddlesome in Zimbabwe calling for sanctions against the country following the land reform programme.
Which, if the reader could indulge a further discussion on the matter, also necessitates us to comment that the Gupta-Zuma saga has serious racial and political undertones. It is also interesting to note that just as recent, there have been massive new information leaks about companies and organisations that benefited from apartheid.
Nobody is talking about that.
We are made to believe that the Guptas are the worst devils that ever graced South Africa and no stone must be left unturned in efforts to destroy them, including conscripting and celebrating the agency of foreign bodies.
Such breath-taking myopia!
WHO was the loser, anyway?
And yes, at the same time as the media and president Zuma’s rivals were toasting to the FBI, closer home, there was that needless furore over the designation — which Cde George Charamba tells us never was — of President Mugabe as some Goodwill Ambassador of the World Health Organisation.
The fallacy aside, the episode is fraught with meaning that we could use to dissect the Zimbabwean political condition.
When the (non) news broke, the opposition in the country was in the forefront of denouncing the decision. Well, dutifully after the British and Americans raised complaints.
President Mugabe’s rivals wanted to have the decision reversed for various reasons, which, but all boil down to the fact that they did not like that “feather in President Mugabe’s cap”.
For the British and Americans it meant that President Mugabe had been legitimated.
Poor WHO director-general Dr Tedros was browbeaten.
We understand that the powerful financiers of the world body threatened to revoke funding, or at least cause the removal of him.
He is the first African to hold that post. It did not matter that he had purportedly designated President Mugabe as an African Ambassador, not a Western one.
But the noise that came from home was astounding in one big way: in the obsession with the person of President Mugabe getting the honour, the opposition did not care what benefits would accrue to the country in dealing with the scourge of non-communicable diseases.
NCDs are the rising killer in the country. The leader of the opposition, Morgan Tsvangirai, is afflicted with cancer.
NCDs are a lifestyle issue.
President Mugabe, aged 93, is an example of healthy living which he always reminds us as he eats healthy and does not drink or smoke.
He would be a sure perfect candidate for ambassador for NCDs — if that were to come.
But Zimbabweans are petty.
Zimbabwe’s politics is petty.
And, what is more shocking is that across the board there is pettiness that has come to characterise our politics.
We do not look beyond our noses. Indeed we are myopic, and this is a disgraceful national condition.
Opponents of President Mugabe may have celebrated over the non-issue, but what then in the morning after?
Candid Gutu
MDC-T spokesperson Obert Gutu had his moment of candour this week.
He admitted that the opposition was in a shambles and were going to lose next year’s elections.
If he had a way, the elections would be postponed!
Let’s hear him speak:
“The current opposition, in whatever form or nature it appears, is solidly ill-prepared to solely resolve the deeply-rooted political and socio-economic challenges facing the country. We are terribly under-funded and rather ill-organised and in some cases, actually deeply divided amongst ourselves.
“This is the real truth which we shouldn’t run away from . . . Thus, we need urgent and unprecedented political engineering in order to chart a brand new progressive political and economic trajectory for our beloved country.
“Post-2018, there is actually a real possibility that Zimbabwe might emerge with a unique and never-been-seen-before government in order to soft land the long-standing national political and economic crises.
“To those amongst us who might be impatiently eyeing various political offices in next year’s elections, you might have to hold your horses a little bit.
“There are more pressing political hygiene issues that we should deal with before we rush to hold the elections . . .”
There are a number of issues that flow from Gutu’s submissions.
The first is that the opposition is going to lose next elections.
That is moot.
We are now in the knowledge that the opposition is lacking confidence and many of its cadres are even looking beyond politics.
The opposition does not even have money to finance the campaign, something that has been brought about donors withholding funding for two reasons: they cannot continue shoving money down the drain, and they cannot trust the opposition (as well as the civil society) with money because that money is going to be misused as officials drink beer and merry.
On the whole, a dark pall is being cast on the opposition by the illness of Morgan Tsvangirai.
As we speak, he has once again been airlifted (sorry, Luke) to South Africa where he is receiving treatment and the frequency of such visits and trajectory is not encouraging at all.
A few weeks back we saw him arriving at the airport and it was a pitiful sight.
Now things are going south.
It means that the party may soon, out of necessity, have to find a new face.
That is enough reason why Obert Gutu may want elections delayed.
Online Reporter