Mugabe subverting democracy

via Mugabe subverting democracy – DailyNews Live 29 December 2014 by James Maridadi

HARARE – It is now 16 ministers and deputies and the numbers are still rising.

The Dr Grace Mugabe show is still on and no one can count themselves safe anymore.

The axe is swinging fast and furious in all directions and there is a lot of “sacred” blood on the floor.

After consolidating all state and party political power into his own hands and of course his wife’s, the dear leader has taken the First Family to the Far East on a “well-deserved” vacation.

Zanu PF has been whipped into submission and no one will squawk a single word of dissent even in deep slumber. Dr Grace is in charge. The old man has all but confirmed it. It’s game on and men and women in the ruling party are all lying prostrate before her.

But, many civil servants have not received their bonuses and the number of vendors on the streets of Harare, like in any other urban centre across the country, has either tripled or quadrupled.

Zimbabwe, like South Sudan remains a failed state since 2005. Mugabe continues his unrestrained, sharp and abusive denunciation of the British whenever the opportunity arises. He is stuck in the politics of 30 years ago and so is everything else under his charge.

Most companies will not be able to reopen in the new year and bond coins will continue to be resisted by unconvinced and suspicious consumers.

Who can trust a Reserve Bank whose recklessness destroyed the little that had remained of a once vibrant economy through senseless quasi fiscal interventions and programmes such as bacossi and foliwars amongst a host of other ill-conceived, high sounding nothings? Why do all these nonsensical privations only happen to Zimbabwe?

A funeral company scooped the coveted Business of the Year award for 2014. An undertaker winning such a prestigious prize means one thing. The country’s health delivery system is in tatters and everyone is literally walking dead.

It is a pathetic indictment for a country with a ministry of Health presided over by three medical doctors. As fate would have it, one of the lot has just been shown the exit door for both strategic ineptitude and political stupidity.

That would be Paul Chimedza and government doctors must be celebrating good riddance to bad rubbish. Is it not self-deprivation that a medical doctor celebrates the poverty of fellow-practitioners advocating that they get penalised for undertaking industrial action.

The least paid junior doctor takes home less than $500 monthly and yet Chimedza is happy for the Salary Service Bureau to deduct 55 percent of that pittance. How wretched? In Chewa they say, “Chapezamunzakochapita, mava chili kwaiwe”, simply put, “Do not celebrate your neighbour’s misery for it could just be you on the wrong end of action in the morrow.”

One thing was very telling though at the Zanu PF congress is that no one wants Mugabe anymore. The fact that he is now a liability is there for all to see.

Physically he has to be chaperoned almost hand-held by his wife who must also always ensure the old man’s garments are sitting on him properly. Like those of a fidgety toddler, the apparels somehow constantly fly in all directions. Politically, he stands in the way of internal party and wider country democracy and here is how.

In 2004, Emmerson Mnangagwa had won seven out of 10 provinces, a pre-requisite to be elected party’s second secretary hence State vice president.

Mugabe scuppered the process and declared that the innocent prize giving ceremony at Dinyane Secondary School in the middle of rural Tsholotsho was a disguise for an impudent palace coup.

Provincial chairpersons were summarily fired, government ministers were dismissed and the perceived ultimate beneficiary of Tsholotsho, Mnangagwa himself was thrown into political wilderness.

Joice Mujuru gained political traction from the ensuing dispersion. She was declared vice president and the whole country fed off her 50-year-old palm.

Fast forward nine years. The theme, script and producer remain unchanged. The cast has switched roles. Those who were on the receiving end are now having a laugh and vice versa.

The setting has moved some 600 kilometres north from Tsholotsho to Mazowe. The production now is more vicious and less compromising courtesy of a new co-producer Dr “Stop It” Grace. She brings in a whole new dimension to Zimbabwe’s politics of patronage and entitlement.

Following what Dr Grace prefers to call exorcising of the Dotito demon, nine out of 10 provincial chairpersons, seven out of nine of the most senior politburo secretaries and so far 16 Cabinet ministers, deputies and provincial affairs ministers have been shown the exit.

They all stand accused of being members of the Mujuru cabal devising the deposition by assassination of Mugabe.

Ridiculous as the allegations sound, if all those senior party cadres were planning the ouster of Mugabe, then quite honestly who likes the old man.

This confirms the long held view that the nonagenarian is a loner and highly unpopular more so within the party that he leads.

Cadres trading accusations of not loving the president and the First Family enough marked the genesis of the votes-of-no confidence and the ensuing avalanche.

Temba Mliswa accused the “gang of three” and in particular Patrick Zhuwawo of not loving and protecting his uncle the President enough and Zhuwawo retorted that Mliswa was only pretending to love the President when in actual fact his allegiance lay elsewhere.

How do you force people to have affection towards you? Love cannot be scripted or legislated. You gain and lose affection and this is dependent on many variables and legislation is not one of them.

This “love” madness was amplified by one Karikoga Kaseke who bared his soul to the media thus: “I want to make it clear. I respect the First Family. I don’t just respect, I respect and fear the First Family. I instructed my wife to attend Amai’s rallies and make sure that when she is there, Amai (Grace) sees her.

I told her that the only way Amai can see that she is there is by greeting her so that she sees you. Amai is everyone’s Amai and also want to have a stake.” God forbid!!

What subjugation and bondage?

To imagine that the gentleman is a veteran of the war of liberation is truly heart rending. Like hundreds of similarly tormented Zimbabwean souls, especially those in Zanu PF, Kaseke needs his life back. Cries for freedom like this leave me with no option but to call upon all self-respecting citizens to raise our collective decibels and scream to the powers that be to “please set my people free”.

As Zimbabweans, we are demanding freedom not only because we know we deserve it but also events of the past two months show that the Zanu PF apparatchiks need it more and they need it now.

We are told of another Cabinet reshuffle upon Dr Grace’s return. Now this is sublime nonsense! A reshuffle just a few weeks after the appointment of new ministers.

Where is this Mugabe couple taking us? Currently, only Patrick Chinamasa, and the two Walters, Chidakwa and Mzembi have an idea what it means to be in cabinet.

Now, to imagine that the likes of Sithembiso Nyoni, Chris Mushowe and Obert Mpofu will better this country is like expecting a chicken to deliver a live birth.

All dismissed ministers are dreaming of an seeking audience with the President in order to clear their names. Come on now!

American rock band Mister Mr did in 1985 an album entitled “Welcome to the Real World” and off the album are songs like, “It’s My Life and Is It Love”.

Most importantly is the song “Broken Wings” which goes thus, “Take these broken wings and learn to fly again and learn to live ever so free.” There you have it. You have been fired, have the decency to accept your fate and move on.