The magnitude and extent of self-immolating buffoonery at Zanu PF is award-winning.
I say this prompted by the recent congregation of party mandarins at an event illuminated with praise- singing, pervasive bootlicking and occult idolatry.
Listening to President Robert Mugabe’s fading demagoguery, all I could do was shake my head with awe and trepidation.
Overwhelmed by a cynical sense of foreboding, I cannot help but confront the reality that all things human, after all, end.
That political party, sticking out awkwardly like a soapstone obelisk in murky waters of a drying lake, has finally been corroded by the elements of democratic change, to the point of irrelevance.
Jewish prophet Isaiah would have said: “Come now, Brother Mugabe, let us reason together. Ten years shy of a century in the next election, pay attention to the hazards of stepping into an electoral cauldron replete with energetic young hopefuls.”
Mugabe protests: “I cannot leave my people in a dam alone. It will be completely wrong on me and an act of cowardice.” Echoes of the past. No worthy successor. Manifestations of the highest order of tactical bankruptcy. Frothing myopic denialism — a quantum leap into political oblivion.
This time Mugabe will need much more that sabre-rattling, teargassing and colourful party scarecrows.
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He knows too well there is no hope in hell that Zanu PF can prevail in an election where the institutions of democracy thrive in their natural habitat.
Since 2000, he has neutralised the relentless winds of democracy sweeping across Zimbabwe with unprecedented, draconian brutality.
Totally exposed to unfamiliar political competition, Mugabe and his henchmen have deployed all known forms of State-assisted bloodletting, plunder, jerry-mandering, distortion and ballot stuffing.
This pattern of crude politics assumed plague proportion in the bloodbath of June 2008, stunning the moribund Sadc into brokering a Government of National Unity.
You would think he has learned, but then again, old habits die hard. Four years down the road, Mugabe has totally forgotten the bitter taste of defeat, daring another run at a game he is destined to lose.
With advancing age and a fractious politburo perforating his enthusiasm, the fading schemer has found an unlikely campaign partner from the Republic of Utopia — Gwede Mantashe.
“We will send campaign strategy teams to work with you; this will be the best way to celebrate the centenary of the ANC in January 2012,” opines Mantashe, with a tinge of belligerence.
He may portray utopian naivety, yet he got it right. Zanu PF has exhausted its power retention options, but if Mantashe’s assistance is to do with debonair marketing and savvy public relations intelligence, some Good Samaritan ought to wake him up before the high tide garrotes him in his siesta.
At Zanu PF, it’s not sophisticated payoff lines that subdue adversaries, but crowbars, Molotov cocktails and prison cells.
Pity Mantashe ignores his presidential adviser Lindiwe Zulu. She maintains there will be no Sadc-approved elections in Zimbabwe until all the GPA conditions are fulfilled.
Mugabe is unlikely to alter his party’s electoral chromosomes, thus if Mr. Mantashe intends to remain a respectable member of the human race, his “strategic” advice to Mugabe must be simple. “Comrade, stay well clear of the high-voltage campaign trail to avoid electrocution.”
2013 will be a completely different ball game, driven by social networks, intense media scrutiny and exhaustive free association.
Zimbabwe will be choking with a large youthful middle class demanding real jobs, absolute freedom and quality higher education.
I implore Mugabe to leave the dam before being marooned in the deadly flotsam of flooding democratic waters.
