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Fungi Kwaramba Political Editor
THE contrast between Zanu PF and CCC is that of day and night, oil and water, democrats and dictators.
On one hand, President Mnangagwa is entrenching democracy, opening the gates for aspiring young blood to challenge the old faces during the recently held Central Committee elections, results of which have been received with contentment by both victor and vanquished.
But on the other hand, it is the same old hocus pocus in the CCC, a party led by one man, who has no deputy, no chairman, no secretary general, and who for all intents and purposes leads a secret society that bizarrely seeks to assume the levers of power in a democratic country.
While Zanu PF democracy is bottom-up, its opposition has a man who has an infantile propensity to undress even his closest lieutenants and strip them of their positions on social media platforms.
Recall when Mr Nelson Chamisa questioned the reference to Mr Charlton Hwende as Secretary General, insisting that, “we have no such titles in the citizens”.
He of course was to eat humble pie and delete the tweet after he had been quizzed how he could lay claim to the presidency when his project had no such titles.
While Zanu PF has the pedigree of organising people and structures that date back to the liberation struggle culminating in a victory against the British catspaw Rhodesian army and the hoisting of the Zimbabwean flag in 1980, Mr Chamisa, whose outfit was formed in January this year, has no known structure or measurable organisational capacity.
Through the Central Committee elections, which have both renewed and revitalised Zanu PF, the ruling party is sharpening its campaign machinery ready to roll and claim victory, by way of an indisputable landslide, in next year’s elections.
The opposition has zilch on that front save for inflammatory messages that are designed to create chaos in the country, assuage the interests of impatient funders and repel potential investors which have come to naught.
This year the ruling party has held elections for the Youth League, Women’s League and War Veterans League — all cogs that form the behemoth that is Zanu PF.
These polls gave its supporters a platform to democratically elect their leadership as is demanded in any democratic country.
Meanwhile, the opposition, which feigns fear of infiltration, has not, further isolating itself from the people who have come of age.
As Sun Tzu, the great Chinese military general and strategist said in his book, “The Art of War”, “victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win”.
Zanu PF has already won next year’s elections while predictably somnambulists in the opposition sleepwalk into next year’s polls, prodded by their puppeteers at the US embassy to seek power for the sake of reversing the gains of the liberation struggle — the land reform programme and rule by Zimbabweans.
Of course they will in typical fashion cry foul when the results are announced, only that the schoolmaster that is time, has made Zimbabweans, and the world at large, all the wiser.
An ancient teaching says that if you don’t prepare adequately then you are preparing to fail and that seems exactly what the opposition CCC is doing as it goes one man, solo, swiftly into oblivion.
Were it not for constitutional requirements which require elections to be held every five years, 2023 might as well have been a knockout as the colossal party that is Zanu PF paints the country in the revolutionary colours of red, green, black, and gold.
President Mnangagwa, the ruling party’s presidential candidate, has been indefatigable, cutting ribbons for fertiliser plants, breaking the ground for new mining projects including recently in Manhize where a new town is being built, commissioning people-centred and crafting policies that have once again made the country a darling for many.
The business community now has confidence in investing in Zimbabwe as evidenced by regular flights into the country by investors from across the globe.
These include a current team of South African, Indian and German investors who are bringing in capital.
Giving Zimbabweans hope again, President Mnangagwa has come up with programmes like Pfumvudza/Intwasa that have ensured that each and every household, rural or urban, with a tillable piece of land gets inputs and is guaranteed food security. There is also the ubiquitous construction of dams and roads, infrastructure that has seen thousands of people being employed while greenbelts have been established countrywide.
In terms of industrialisation and modernisation, which are both pillars towards the attainment of the country’s Vision as expressed in the National Development Strategy 1 (NDS1), the President also announced that an US$800 million rural electrification programme will be launched this month to leapfrog the development of communities once considered remote but which are now being opened by the Second Republic.
Looking beyond short-term benefits for the population, the President also announced a game-changing policy in the mining sector that will benefit future generations from the proceeds of minerals, like gold and diamonds which, although vast, are a finite resource even as they damage the environment.
In every part of Zimbabwe, every Zimbabwean has a beautiful story to tell about the Second Republic, which is building the country fulfilling President Mnangagwa’s pledge of development that leaves no place and no one behind.
Reasons why President Mnangagwa is poised to win are so many to mention for this instalment and that is just an example of what the country’s visionary leader has done to restore the currency of hope among Zimbabweans.
Indeed, the basic formula for winning an election is straightforward—your candidate needs to get more votes than their opponent(s).
The art comes into play by figuring out how to get to that number and President Mnangagwa has proved his mettle.
Next year Zanu PF is targeting 5 million votes for its presidential candidate President Mnangagwa.
This isn’t some number pulled from a magician’s hat but rather yet another attestation of the ruling party’s scientific approach to plebiscites.
Already the party has an active membership of more than 3,5 million.
To win an election, a party needs not get numb, furiously churning anti-Zimbabwe and Zanu PF sentiment on social media, rather it entails a broad plethora of pragmatic steps that put theory into practice through responding to people’s needs, fulfilling electoral promises and enticing new voters with new ideas.
Isn’t it that President Mnangagwa has been doing exactly this for the past four years, so much that his zinger “kuti tsepete” (voting), has become synonymous with getting the masses, regardless of demographic grouping, colour, or political beliefs, to register to vote.
“This freedom we have, boys and girls took arms and went to war and it was not easy, people were dying in droves, people got injured but we sacrificed for 15 years until we defeated the enemy.
“We got the power, but after every 5 years, we go to an election to get new powers and a new mandate, and it’s so easy we can now do it through a vote. There is no sweat in voting.
“It’s now easy to preserve our hard-won independence by only casting a vote and if anyone of us finds that difficult then something is wrong with that person,” said the President.
Online Reporter