It is understandable that some people get very excited when they get into positions of political power.
NEWSDAY EDITORIAL
Politics has a tendency to elevate the least brainless of individuals to high office. In most political parties in Zimbabwe, it is those who are prepared to shout empty slogans, use violence to cow reasonable voices and lick the boots of their benefactors who normally make it to the top.
Once they are there, they transform themselves into little demigods that have the power to condemn lesser mortals to lives on the periphery.
They have absolutely no clue how modern economies work believing as they do that their political party is entitled to bulldoze its way through all processes.
One may forgive Manicaland Provincial Affairs minister Mandi Chimene for her utterances recently in which she called upon diamond mining companies to fire all workers who belong to the MDC-T.
Often it is said: “Where ignorance is bliss, it’s folly to be wise.” Because of this ancient wisdom people might be thinking of letting Chimene continue to wallow blissfully in her ignorance, but when such ignorance has the potential to destabilise business in a country like Zimbabwe which desperately needs a functioning economy, those who can, should bring her to order.
A beneficiary of the ugly purges that went on in her party Zanu PF in recent weeks, she feels a sense of entitlement that only people belonging to her party have the right to get employment in this country.
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Interestingly, she didn’t include the victims of the Zanu PF purges in her directive. We thought Zanu PF’s worst enemies at the moment were those aligned to the so-called Joice Mujuru faction. It would seem she is happy to have these employed in diamond companies. But this is sacrilegious considering how the MDC—T is no longer the greatest enemy of Zanu PF.
But Chimene is very short-sighted. Just a glance back at the political trajectories of those who her party mercilessly got rid of in December would remind her the same people used to wield the same power she holds now and abused it the way she is abusing it. But they got their comeuppance and, she surely will get her own too.
The fluidity of politics is such that she just might wake to find herself in the wrong grouping or she might be ditched by the same people who appointed her. Then she will realise that politics is a dirty game that needs a careful game plan.
Thirteen million people call this country their own. It is their birthright that they participate in the country’s mainstream economy.
This country owes them a living and no one has the right to deprive anybody else of this birthright. Citizens of any country have the right to belong to different political groupings and that should not exclude them from any form of activity simply due to their political choices.
In many countries in Africa and abroad, such exclusion has brought about political instability often leading to civil strife. Zimbabwe does not wish to take that route and Chimene should know better and shut up.
