via Indigenisation: New succession battlefield – The Zimbabwe Independent April 8, 2016
THE raging battle within government pitting Indigenisation minister Patrick Zhuwao and Finance minister Patrick Chinamasa over compliance of the financial services sector with indigenisation requirements is symptomatic of the crisis engulfing the nation caused by fierce succession power struggles in Zanu PF, former Finance minister Tendai Biti has said. Biti said indigenisation, which is now the new political battlefield for Zanu PF succession wars, was destroying the economy.
By Kudzai Kuwaza
Zanu PF has two main factions, one led by Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa, and another coalesced around First Lady Grace Mugabe fighting over President Robert Mugabe’s succession.
In an interview with the Zimbabwe Independent this week Biti, who is also the leader of People’s Democratic Party, said it was important that Zimbabweans do not become idle bystanders as Zanu PF persists on a path of destruction.
Biti said none of the two main Zanu PF factions would bring about real change in Zimbabwe given that the G40 faction wanted “to see the reproduction of the old order of exclusion, violence and fear”, while the Mnangagwa faction, associated with draconian laws, purges of the judiciary, electoral theft and Gukurahundi and other gross human rights abuses, wants to introduce economic reforms without democratic reforms.
Zhuwao, a G40 member, and Chinamasa, a Mnangagwa ally, are embroiled in an ugly public row that was torched by the Finance minister’s statement last week that foreign-owed banks had complied with indigenisation requirements. It sparked an angry rebuttal from Zhuwao who accused Chinamasa of being ignorant of the empowerment laws.
“The public spat is a micro-cosm of structural, deep-rooted crises arresting the state. Indeed, the spat is mere manifestation of real battles being fought by the beleaguered Zanu PF regime faced with the reality of Mugabe’ s imminent departure,” Biti said.
“In short, the indigenisation battle reflects Zanu PF’s unresolved succession problems and associated issues.”
Biti said Zimbabweans must rally to stop the ruling party from leading the country to irretrievable ruin.
“The generality of Zimbabweans cannot be innocent spectators to this Zanu PF madness and narrative of destruction,” Biti charged.
“The citizen must quickly reorganise and seize control of the transition underway. The danger of not providing the requisite thought leadership, the danger of not coming together to act means allowing ascendancy of the G40 clique which will subject Zimbabwe potentially to another 36 years of desolation. Such a thought is as scary as it may be reality.”
The PDP leader said the need for a united opposition could not be overemphasised, but warned that “certain elements and their supporters in the opposition ranks” need to undergo their own processes of change, reinvention and renewal or face extinction.
Biti said the contradictions in Zanu PF are mainly based on differences of how take the country forward, but none of the factions have solid and workable solutions to Zimbabwe’s economic malaise.
“There is a bloody fight in Zanu PF, largely behind the scenes, between those that see the inevitability of change and those that believe in the retention of an old order based on the doctrine of preservation of the political kingdom. Regime retention and preservation is the last thing Zimbabwe needs now.
“Mnangagwa is seduced by the idea of change, particularly economic reform but predicated on the Chinese model of free market economics within an authoritarrian framework. The Chinese model of political hegemony sprinkled with a neo- liberal economic discourse. The idea that Zimbabwe could be another China after 1978 with Mnangagwa being our own Deng Xiaoping or Singapore with Mnangagwa as our own Lee Kuan Yu is simply ridiculous.” Biti said the Mnangagwa’s faction had successfully sold this dream “to a few gullible Western embassies and capitals”.
“Suddenly there is now growing verbiage that Africa in general, and Zimbabwe in particular, does not need, and cannot cope with democracy. What Zimbabwe needs is a strongman able to lead economic reform, and that man is Mnangagwa. The inconvenience of regular democratic elections will be by-passed through a continued dosage of competitive authoritarran regime electoral shenanigans. After all, stolen elections are now the new normal in Zimbabwe,” Biti said.
The PDP leader said the G40 faction was vicious and keen to maintain the current order as shown by its rigid support for Mugabe and everything he represents.
“Up against the Mnangagwa faction is the vicious cabal known as Generation 40 whose greatest weapon is the controversial First Lady Grace Mugabe. This is a group of fanatical and reckless elements without any restraint. G40 is using a scorched- earth strategy based on continued reproduction of the predatory rogue regime. Indigenisation being an example of that, continued farm invasions being another.
“The battle in Zanu PF is therefore not about reform or democratisation. It is not an ideological or policy battle.
It’s about putting lipstick on a pig and how to do it.
“The difference is therefore one of tactic not principle. The Mnangagwa faction recognises that old methods of isolation and bashing of the West cannot work. So change without reform is the new buzzword among some diplomats.”
Biti said Chinamasa is the Mnangagwa faction’s face, adding that the Finance minister’s mandate is to extract money from Washington and Paris “without the pain of reform”. He said what Zimbabwe needs is serious leadership, political and structural reform and change, not tinkering.
COMMENTS
I just look and observe the way my people treat each other. African people. We have no love for each other, no unity for each other, do not care about the next generate we bring to this earth. All my people do is act like animals of prey to each other. It seems the only thing that is important to my people is to acquire that green piece of paper call the dollar. The same dollar that has this pictures of slave owners on them, the same dollar that my people where sold into slavery over. The same piece of paper that your white oppressors have made you to become and worship in their image to mistreat each other and kill each other. We do nothing as African people but hurt each other, just as our former oppressors did. This is what the legacy of racism white supremacy has left us. And my people take that legacy and continue the madness amongst ourselves. My African people have become a willing participant in our own self destruction. It is sad how we have been taught to chase a piece of paper called the dollar. That at any moment the white man could cut it off from Zimbabwe using it. Then what? We have everything that white people came to this continent to take and go build their countries on our resources and the only thing my people learned was the way of their oppressor. We gave up our culture, our ancestors, our way of life, all too just to imitate the madness that white people left us. We have a jealousy to each other that has been embedded in our spirit, as we live the white man’s spirit and nature now. But it has only a black face on it now. All my people do is live in self made chaos now. From the leadership, down to the people. They have been taught to chase the white man’s way of life and disregard our culture and real way of life. And then you pray to the white man God that they forced on our people. His God will not hear you or help you no matter how long you pray on your knees. Only our Ancestors will hear us now. And the longer we ignore our ancestors and pray to our enemies ancestors my people will suffer. We talk about the leadership of this country and Africa which has been taught by our oppressors to keep them engaged and they keep our attention so we cannot do the work we need to rise as a people. The president of Zimbabwe is just a product of colonial teachings and he filters that down to his people not knowing his has been tricked. You see the fact is, a slave and a slave master cannot worship the same God. Because while you are praying to his God for freedom and equality. Your master is praying to the same God to keep you oppressed. And as you see his God has been answering him always. Because those are his ancestors, not yours. As I read all this madness that is going on in the country everyday about politics and who wants to be in charge for mostly their own selfish reasons, they keep trying to convince the people this is in their best interest. But the facts say different as you look at the suffering of the people and all they do is entrust their life to the same people elite that say they love their people. Which as you can see are all lies from the top down. White people have left African people a culture of madness to live by, while the white people sit back and watch our leaders self destruct, and then our leaders will get on their knees and ask the same white devils to come back in and assist them to survive. Just look at the current facts. White people stole our lands, and have mad untold fortunes over the past 100 years. Native Zimbabweans the government take back the land from the white thieves, and give it back to its people with no plans on how to make it work for the benefit of our people. This leadership then goes back to its own people that it distributed the land too, only to steal it back from its own people. The Elite blacks that is. This is including in high government also. And then continue to do nothing with the land. At the same time the whites that stole the land are now just waiting to see how much more time it will take for government to come back to them begging for help and considering paying them the whites compensation on land that their white forefathers stole in the first place as if they have some type of rights to receive anything for what they have done to the people of this country and in Africa. They steal Zimbabeans land, make the laws to keep it and create title deeds to say the stolen land is theirs, and now say native Zimbabweans took it from its rightful owner. You see the madness in their scheme that my people have fallen for. Now we have Cinamasa considering having conversations with the same thieves to give them monies on land they received from their forefathers that stole it from native Zimbabweans. And the question is why you would have a conversation with thieves unless you are stupid and weak, or both. The IMF comes here to say the only way they will give Zimbabwe more debt they cannot afford to pay, is to pay the IMF $1.8 billion in arrears and then the IMF will give Zimbabwe back $900 million in more debt. Which mean Zimbabwe will never be free of these blood suckers but they have no other alternative as Zimbabwe has a group of worthless people running its finances and do nothing but beg white people and the Asian countries for dollars, while they laugh at this country knowing all the trillions of dollars of resource they have in the ground in this country and are useless to do anything with these resources because you have ignorant and arrogant people that have been put in positions of power that are weak in all that they do. These are the facts. No one in government is willing to say. We need help, but not from our enemies because no deal you cut with your enemies will ever be better for you.
You see Zimbabwe has a government built on greed and corruption that was the same as their oppressor where running before Zimbabwe so called independence. What is Zimbabwe independent from? There is still a corrupt government that has corrupted the people in the same thinking at the private sector as the government rules its own coffers. So it like the father and mother has taught their children to reflect their ways of life. And look at the country now. So thank your father and mother of the country, for the misbehaving children.
My people here always say respect your elders no matter what they teach their children the wrong way to live. And when that father and mother tell their children they are never wrong in their thinking in what they teach their children. But the children are now living in chaos. Who do you blame? The child or the parents. Back to the start with the war vets. They can only ask for things because the father has not treated his children with love and respect. So now they have only become an extension of the father’s actions.
Zimbabweans need to stop and look, listen, and learn. It is not about one person that says all is right as they command. The power is and always has been in the people. Zimbabweans people are humble and mostly have good hearts, and peaceful. In the Bible that my people believe in so much. There is a passage. CHILDREN HONOR YOUR MOTHER AND FATHER, SO THAT YOUR DAYS MAY BE LONG. BUT PARENTS DO NOT PROVOKE YOUR CHILDREN TO ANGER. Question is: Have the children honored the father and mother for the past 36 years? Or have the children been provoke into anger, by the father and mother that have misguided them?
Point is, you can love and respect your parents their entire life. But are the children taught wrong behavior from their parents. What else would you expect from the children of the next generation?
Zimbabwe, wrong is wrong, no matter who teaches you these things. Clear your thoughts of yesterday. And create for new change today. I love my people so dearly around the world. But now it is time over for blaming and bad behavior. Parents hold your children accountable for the bad things they do. But parent teach them better not to have bad behavior. Because at the end. Parents are still responsible for what their children do, by what they have taught them.
Change is the only thing that is constant in our existence a human beings. And if you go against the natural order of change you will suffer. Love and respect each other my African people. We can blame anybody we like for our ills. But look in the mirror and you will see the problem and the solution at the same time. It is never too late to change. Peace
Your article interested me till you started talking about their God and our God! Im perplexed about this as there is only one God who created all races. He is the one who gave the law to Moses about children respecting their parents. He is the one also who talks extensively about love which you expouse above. Ancestors are not Gods. They were born died, were buried. They were created.The God we worship is a Spirit of all that is wholesome and perfect. He cannot be compared to anything or anyone.Badness in people cannot be blamed on God as he gave us free will.
Amen to that Abigail! He is the God of all, we are all made in His image.
Wow Piankhi. Racist or what? You want to take Zimbabwe back 150 years. Thank goodness I have left.