Didymus Mutasa’s storm in a tea cup

via Didymus Mutasa’s storm in a tea cup | The Herald January 14, 2015

Yesterday, the country woke up to screaming headlines in the private media about a supposed Armageddon in Zanu-PF. One paper proclaimed, “New war breaks out in Zanu-PF” as, according to it, “liberation pioneers confront (President) Mugabe” and “split in the party now looks inevitable”. Another daily was equally dramatic with the headline “Mujuru confronts Mugabe” while also predicting a Zanu-PF split.

As it turned out, the source of the two stories was a statement that former Zanu-PF secretary for administration Didymus Mutasa, who signs off fraudulently purporting to be still in that position, gave to the two papers.

Mutasa purports to write the statement on behalf of “the entire membership of the party”, “all elected office bearers who have been unconstitutionally and unceremoniously removed from office without charge, all current office bearers who recognise and accept that they are unconstitutionally appointed” and “all past members of Zanu-PF, expelled or who dissociated with Zanu-PF voluntarily in prior years due to perceived the lack of (sic) principles in the party.”

Ordinarily, with Mutasa, who is now an ordinary member of Zanu-PF having lost his position in the top echelons of the party, being the source and sponsor of the statement, the same should have been simply dismissed with the contempt due to a sore loser.

Sore losers are a fact and life’s various arenas and fora and the world is usually prudent enough to ignore losers’ rants which surely and truly heal with time.

However, Mutasa’s rants were given a special prominence for obvious reasons, namely that they serve the interests and wishes of the two opposition-linked newspapers that carried them, particularly with the 24th AU Summit around the corner.

The opposition Press welcomes anything that will help weaken and destroy the ruling Zanu-PF party, and taint President Mugabe’s image. Which is what the opposition papers in question think Mutasa and the shadowy characters he purports to front, including former Vice President Mujuru who was fired for incompetence and behaviour inconsistent with her office, are brewing.

Only they are wrong.

Mutasa’s statement is just a storm in a tea cup and one of the very last histrionics he will be able to pull as he sinks into political oblivion. He has written to the sadc Chairman, as he indicates in his statement, an ironic and unwitting move given the fact that President Mugabe whom he seeks to complain against is the sadc chairman himself.

He has written to the AU, of which President Mugabe is vice chair and incoming chairman.

Secondly, Mutasa has asked regional liberation movements to come to his aid, which is again untenable.

The latest move, with which he hopes to drum up moral-political support with the aid of opposition papers, is the penultimate move on his chessboard with the legal route being his ultimate. It does not take special talents to see that Mutasa is doomed, and there are several reasons for it. Also, and for academic purposes only, it will be instructive to analyse the import of Mutasa’s statement.

Sore loser, many losers

The first reason why Mutasa’s bid to overturn his current status as non-office holder is that due processes within Zanu-PF rendered him as such. He has not been expelled from the party but he lost the Central Committee elections that were held in Manicaland province on November 24, 2013.

The results of that election, which was conducted via secret ballot, show that Mutasa received the lowest votes in Makoni District, polling only 85 against 165 for Joseph Made.

He was even defeated by barely-known Florence Majachani who out-polled him by nearly 100 percent at 169 while other victors were Cdes Patrick Chinamasa (177) and Mandi Chimene (149).

Central committee elections elsewhere across produced similar upsets and that is how the party’s top organ saw the backs of many bigwigs some of whom had to thank President Mugabe for appointing them back to the committee.

The list of those that fell by the wayside in the elections include, among others, Ministers Lazarus Dokora (Education), Nicholas Goche (Labour), Dzikamai Mavhaire (Energy), Walter Mzembi (Tourism), Simbarashe Mumbengegwi (Foreign Affairs), Flora Buka and Francis Nhema (Youth and Empowerment).

Cdes Flora Buka, Herbert Murerwa and Sikhanyiso Ndlovu are some of the notables to have fallen by the wayside.

The biggest casualty, though, was former VP Mujuru who was rejected by her home Mashonaland Central province as she was disqualified from running.

The losers were as many as winners; the unfortunate as fortunate, and Mutasa happened to tarry on the wrong side although his bitterness seems to out-poison everyone’s, including the deposed vice president.

It is in this light that Mutasa’s attempts at soiling the process and outcomes of the Zanu-PF 6th National People’s Congress held last December become vacuous and vexatious not least because he boycotted the event itself, along with other sore losers, and in his special case on the ostensible grounds that his wife was ill and had to be taken to India for treatment.

Delusions of grandeur:

The Didymus Disease

It is clear, has been clear for some time, that Didymus Mutasa has been fancying himself as the kingmaker in Zanu-PF and the godfather of Manicaland Province.

It is these delusions of grandeur that made him delegate himself god-like powers in his home province and give himself the licence to terrorise anyone and everyone from white farmers and opposition members to members of his own party some of whom he goaded for sexual favours.

It is a disease that he has not been able to cure himself of. Right now, he believes he is the rallying point of all people disaffected with Zanu-PF and in particular President Mugabe. He says he speaks for the “entire membership of the party”; he speaks for “all past members of Zanu-PF, expelled or who dissociated with Zanu-PF voluntarily”.

The latter means Didymus Mutasa says he is the new Mavambo, the new Margaret Dongo, the new Edgar Tekere and the new Morgan Tsvangirai, all of whom former members of Zanu-PF who left the revolutionary party to pursue treacherous politics.

Mutasa is them — and he says so.

In fact, he is confirming the Mavambo link to the Mujuru cabal.

The opposition in this country has a new face! In this connection, it is also useful to highlight that Mutasa is also openly rebelling against President Mugabe not only for what happened last year but his legacy in its totality.

It is a fact that NewsDay savours.

He accuses President Mugabe of being an illegitimate leader and insinuates that the congress created an illegality “which continues to be a threat to the stability of Zanu-PF, Zimbabwe and the region at large”.

He goes further that if this is not reversed, “we would be posing a threat to the national constitution of the Republic of Zimbabwe.”

It is hoped that the reader understands the inclusion of the element of violation of the national constitution.

It is ground for potential impeachment of the President, something that has been associated with former VP Mujuru and her acolytes, including Mutasa.

In clear attempts to not only cause, or rather wish for the removal of President Mugabe through the nullification of the congress, Mutasa goes further to attack the legacy of President Mugabe, that is, to try and create a new historical narrative.

Mutasa says President Mugabe has lost “his legacy as a unifier, a rational thinker and not only a national leader but also one who inspired the region and continent of Africa.”

He asks: “. . . we now wonder how the nation, region and continent view our once revered President(?)”

These are all very curious remarks.

Shorn of the cynicism of the speaker, who patently harbours delusions of grandeur, they may throw important light on the nature of the losers of 2014.

But the world needs not to lose sleep over Didymus Mutasa: having exhausted three channels already, including the latest storm in a teacup of trying to sponsor public debate on his imagined clout through rented opposition spaces, his next move will be as drab.

That is, approaching the courts of matters of a private club whose due processes he participated in and lost.

Mutasa’s rant is what Dambudzo Marechera would have characterised as, “a loud fart all silently agree never happened’’.