The late former Vice-President Simon Muzenda was after all not speaking figuratively when he said that if Zanu PF fields a baboon in any constituency, the electorate had no right to question, but to vote for the ape.
GUEST COLUMNIST CYPRIAN M NDAWANA
He may have invoked recriminations, but events unfolding within the party seem to vindicate the late senior citizen. In more ways than one, politics of patronage is synonymous with fielding apes at the expense of competent human aspirants.
Ever since outgoing Zanu PF Women’s League boss Oppah Muchinguri nominated First Lady Grace Mugabe to succeed her, nothing gracious has been happening within the party; bad mouthing, dirty linen and skeletons have been exposed in full glare of all and sundry.
With President Robert Mugabe drooping in his dotage, the party he leads is as fractious as the citizenry he heads.
Yet, it takes one as animated as a fiddle to quell the internal strife. Little wonder, all that the veteran leader could muster was to flaccidly abdicate the burden to douse the fracas to Muchinguri.
Amid the raging war of attrition within the party, neither heavyweight nor lightweight is spared as the First Lady aberrantly fires salvo after salvo, not only ruffling feathers, but breaking leg and limb.
Like prey closed in by predators, party cadres are scattered and scared, banking on the mercy of fate.
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Nominating the First Lady and the subsequent endorsement, to the apex of the Women’s League position was inept, given that she is a greenhorn. Unlike the cloistered environs of State House she has been accustomed to since her marriage to the President subsequent to the death of his first wife, turns and twists of politics are a chore.
Although it is her constitutional right to engage in active politics, the serene mother of the nation role she is used to and temperaments of party politics, more so a militarised one, are at variance. It demands genius adroit to discharge the conflicting functions; hence it is rash to place both on one head.
Her erring on the onset of entering politics is evident of a novice. Conventionally, maiden speeches are essentially genial; they not occasions for disparaging opponents. Their objective is to announce one’s interest in entering a field of endeavour and paying homage to those who held fort before you.
It is humane to acknowledge the inspiration one drew from forerunners, and how profoundly grateful one is to be joining or taking over from them.
Regardless of how divergent an entrant’s roadmap might be from that of their predecessors, civility prescribes that maiden speeches be as a matter of course, courteous.
Yet, the First Lady passed left-hand complements throughout her maiden public speaking itinerary; her rallies were pregnant with accusations and denigrations. She bordered dangerously close to reading the riot act to Cabinet ministers whom she accused of having false love for the President. In her rage, she took more prisoners than her jailhouse can accommodate.
Her denunciation of Cabinet ministers, damning as it was, pales into child’s play compared to the harangue subjected to Vice-President Joice Mujuru. A litany of accusations whose summary amounts to being unfit for office was hurled at the party and government’s most senior female member.
As the First Lady poured scorn and ridicule over the nerve centre of both Zanu PF and government, in what boils down to a vote of no confidence, thinking people are not expected look the other side. Questions that really question are bound to be raised in expectation of answers that really answer, over the rationality of her tirades.
Save for being the First Lady, she has no official position in either the party or government, yet she willy-nilly rode roughshod over stalwarts of the two institutions her husband superintends. Conversely, as one on whose lap the buck stops, Mugabe cannot be spared from his wife’s scathing attacks.
Although it was lower-ranking cadres like Mashonaland East provincial chairperson Ray Kaukonde, Cabinet ministers and Mujuru who were disparaged, there is no way Mugabe can be distanced from the blight. By virtue of being the overall leader, his standing was also commensurately dwarfed by the aberrations.
It is a matrimonial norm that wives periodically deliver curtain lectures to their husbands. For the First Lady to go on the rampage, painting her husband’s subordinates pitch black as she did, it was suggestive of a frustrated wife whose curtain lectures must have long fallen on deaf ears.
Her threat to attend the politburo meeting and the issuance of an ultimatum are indications a frustrated wife on the brink of a burst-up. Sadly, her woes are nonetheless likely to confound her; repercussions of the political keg she cracked are compellingly potent.
Accusations the First Lady raised are open secrets; citizenry know that corruption and abuse of office are a cancer gnawing the very nerve centre of government. Opposition parties and civil society have over the years been complaining of flagrant decadence, yet even the State enterprises bosses’ salaries scam warranted no censure, despite evidence galore.
The First Lady has a mission impossible in portraying herself as free from the vice she criticises others for.
Her recriminations are ludicrous on the backdrop of the no-expense-spared wedding she held for her daughter and the outcry she raised subsequent the doctorate she was recently awarded, to mention but two dark clouds over her.
If the spotlight were to be focused on her, she would know better that it was injudicious of Muchinguri to nominate her. Suffice to state that the First Lady has no moral obligation to sermonise; she is better off quietly enjoying her privileges with gratitude than portraying herself as one without indulgencies.
My commiserations go to Vice-President Mujuru, praying that she endures the ranting with dignity.
Cyprian Muketiwa Ndawana, email [email protected], is a public speaking coach, motivational speaker and speechwriter.
