Zimbabwe’s opposition has sunk

By Tawanda Majoni | Aug. 11, 2024

There is a narcissist camp that wants Emmerson Mnangagwa to rule even on a wheelchair, better still from his grave. Well, some want, but others are being forced into it.

So, when you see Zanu PF people fighting each other, that’s because of one thing. There is no-one else to fight.

Thing is, these subalterns in the ruling Zanu PF are pathological warmongers. They were born and taught to war.

That’s why, half a century after they participated in bringing black rule to Zimbabwe, they are still talking about the war of liberation as if it happened in 2017 when some of them did a coup. As if it’s only fellas from that God-forsaken party who qualify to be veterans and sons and daughters of veterans.

They stand in the comfort zone right now. That’s why intense factionalism has reared its dirty head in there once again.

There is a narcissist camp that wants Emmerson Mnangagwa to rule even on a wheelchair, better still from his grave. Well, some want, but others are being forced into it.

They are now using the so-called youths—a euphemism for jobless, rent-seeking and opportunistic good-for-nothings—to ramp up the 2030 “vision” on behalf of Mnangagwa.

We saw the same thing on the eve of the coup. When young men and women—a bit of them with greying hair and what not—were commandeered into the streets to yell about how good it was for sleepy and tired Robert Mugabe to rule forever.

There is another faction that is angry about that, very angry. These are the underdogs. They don’t like the idea of Mnangagwa going beyond his constitutional tenure till 2028.

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That’s why one of them has chosen what looks like a magnanimous approach. That one is saying there is no room for factionalism in Zanu PF.

That was always going to be vacuous because that person is a beneficiary of factionalism, pre-November 2017.

He is also saying there is no room for personality politics in Zanu PF. Sounds nice on paper, hey.

But that line is fooling only a handful of people. You can’t talk of Zimbabwean politics and servant leadership in one sentence. That becomes a serious case of internal contradiction.

But the fights in Zanu PF look dirtier than this. Not too long ago, some general declared to the world that he is the party political commissar.

That confused a lot of people because, already, there is a PC in the form of Munyaradzi Machacha.

I didn’t hear the leader of the underdog faction say anything about such a naughty statement by the general in question.

You would have expected him to condemn the loaded factionalism in this general’s statement.

It is factionalism when a general says he is the party organiser when there is already another party organiser. That quacks and flaps like factionalism, so it’s factionalism.

Things may not end well in Zanu PF, if history is anything to by. But things may not end the same they did for the Mugabe faction in 2017 because of changed circumstances.

Yet it could actually be way far worse and cruder if the fights continue on this trajectory.

Anyway, that’s beside the matter. My learned thesis, again, is that people in Zanu PF can afford to tear at each because there is super space to do so. The opposition is deader than a dodo.

Parliament is now a Zanu PF monopoly. The majority of the MPs that you would normally associate with the opposition have decomposed into a damp squid.

Those from the CCC that are camping with this impostor called Sengezo Tshabangu now look and feel more Zanu PF than Zanu PF.

That’s why their fraudulent leader, Tshabangu, is opposed to citizen protests. Hmmm, why am I being so modest?

My actual point was, he has actually endorsed the Zanu PF crackdown on people who do not necessarily like what the coup administration is doing.

The few lawmakers who you would want to associate with the CCC loyal to Chamisa have developed sore throats. They can’t speak.

They probably suffered a speech impediment even before they were imposed as candidates at last year’s elections. As a poser, how many opposition MPs today could you readily name without having to Google them out?

There is no more Tendai Biti, courtesy of Chamisa’s rural Gutu politics of power preservation cronyism. And, there is no more Temba Mliswa. There is no more Jessie Majome and it’s a pity my brother Settlement Chikwinya is virtually out, too.

And Chamisa, a megaphone politician still ensconced in polytechnic politics, with sprinklings of new-found pentecostalism for a measure, is out of sight, save for empty social media pronouncements.

The primary object of the opposition is to hold the incumbency to account. Nothing of that sort is happening and will not happen till 2028, if not 2030. And here is where the opposition has always missed it.

The opposition in Zimbabwe has a subverted sense of politics. It habitually thinks that the purpose of being in opposition is to get into power.

That’s why it flatters to deceive during election time, fizzling out till the next polls.

Power must not be the be-all and end-all. Hold those that are in power to account first.

Then prove your worth to be in power in through that. If what you will go out to do it is just to remove Zanu PF from power, you can’t have my ticket. You remove Zanu PF from power, then what?

The only reason why the local opposition has tended to earn some traction is not because its leaders are worth taking over the reins of power. It’s because the majority of Zimbabweans wants Zanu PF out. Oppositional politics.

As a result, the electorate has not voted on the basis of issues and merit. Just the present promise or potential of removing Zanu PF from power, but that’s fatally unsustainable.

You would expect the opposition to have a sense of purpose. Even with whittled numbers, you would have wanted to see some kind of organisation.

We want people who will talk to the current governance deficits and offer solutions.

None from there is doing that, except for the odd posts on X or something like that.

And that’s precisely the reason why things are happening the way they are happening. Zanu Pf and its government have seen the gaps in the opposition.

That way, it becomes easy for them to trample on citizens.

Some people may want to say, but heh, we are living in a dictatorship, so we can’t do anything about it. Do you honestly believe these warmongers in Zanu PF will give it to you on a silver plate?

Tell you what, if this was the thinking as way back as the days of colonialism, Ian Smith would still be ruling us today, from within his tomb.

*Tawanda Majoni writes in his personal capacity and can be contacted on majonitt@gmail.com