THREATS of a military coup coming from senior Zanu PF officials in the event that President Robert Mugabe and the party lose harmonised elections next year should not be taken lightly and should prod Zimbabweans to demand measures be put in place to secure their vote.
NewsDay Comment
It is absurd that almost four years after Zanu PF and the two MDC formations inked the Global Political Agreement (GPA), which, among other things, committed them to democracy through a raft of proposed reforms, we still have a cabal in Mugabe’s party bent on subverting the democratic will of Zimbabweans to elect leaders of their choice.
Utterances by Justice minister Patrick Chinamasa and Zanu PF spokesperson Rugare Gumbo are emblematic of how Mugabe and his party have never and will never be sincere in the commitment they made when they signed the GPA. They are obsessed with power, and will do anything by hook or by crook to retain it. It is up to Zimbabweans to stop them dead in their tracks.
In interviews with the BBC and eNews Channel Africa respectively, Chinamasa and Gumbo warned that if MDC-T leader Morgan Tsvangirai and his party win the elections, the military would not accept the outcome of the polls because the Premier is an agent of the West whose mandate would be to reverse the gains of Independence.
Although Chinamasa and Gumbo’s assertions about reversing the gains of Independence are baseless, it would be foolhardy not to take their threats seriously. Zanu PF has been synonymous with violence since the liberation struggle and we have witnessed some few excitable service chiefs vowing that they will never accept Tsvangirai as the President of this country. There is substance in what Chinamasa and Gumbo have said.
Tsvangirai and Mugabe met on Monday and agreed that Chinamasa was out of tune with the GPA. But the President has on several occasions indicated right, but turned left on important issues, among them violence and the composition of the Broadcasting Authority of Zimbabwe board.
The coup threats have to be ended now and it is incumbent upon all Zimbabweans to put to an end this nonsense. We must demand State security sector reforms to ease out service chiefs who have declared their allegiance to Zanu PF in violation of both the Defence Act and Police Act. They have no room in a professional army, police force and intelligence service.
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Our security sector needs urgent re-orientation to chlorinate itself from Zanu PF and Mugabe’s 32 years of contamination.
The GPA guarantors — Sadc and the African Union — must also speak out against people like Chinamasa and Gumbo.
But, above all, Zimbabweans should force the crafting of a smooth transfer of power mechanism way ahead of next year’s polls. Zimbabweans should be the authors of their destiny. Period!
