FIRST Lady and Zanu PF Women’s League secretary Grace Mugabe resurfaced this week and addressed her executive spelling out her focus at the helm.
It was breathtaking to realise that Grace is aware that the situation that Zimbabweans find themselves in was chiefly caused by Zanu PF officials bickering over the succession of President Robert Mugabe (91) neglecting the country’s development agenda.
This muddying of the political and economic waters has denied the electorate an informed choice about employment creation, poverty alleviation, service delivery and infrastructural development among others.
As a result, Zimbabweans have lost faith in their political system and the men and women that fill it, Grace included. No doubt, the electorate no longer feels represented.
Their wants, needs and opinions no longer fit into the Zanu PF system, and Zimbabweans are more fragmented than ever.
It is a fact that the current line-up up of uninspiring “praise-singers”in Zanu PF represent a political class which is not engaged with their electorates and who rarely inspire, but end up populating government structures.
Many genuine Zanu PF cadres feel they have been lied to and abused by Mugabe for selfish ends.
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It is agreed that Zimbabwe’s political system is in a state of turmoil. Is it not true that the majority of our politicians have never had to find the money to make a wages cheque, never had to put their cojones on the line for a business yet are looked after by the political system even when they fail?
Former Vice-President Joice Mujuru agreed this week that had she not been fired she would not have known how the ordinary people survived in this tough economic environment.
Is this not an indication that Zanu PF no longer represents the Zimbabwean way of life, probably showing why people are ambivalent?
Yet, Mugabe has been able to get away with this obfuscation because of the disarray in the opposition parties. This on its own moves our politics onto dangerous territory.
We believe that Zimbabwe needs fiscal credibility and this should mean government setting out plans that are realistic and believable instead of their continued infighting for political space.
Zanu PF should also come clean with the electorate about the nature of the challenges that need answering. It is clear that all that is happening is symptomatic of a political party that is no longer a profoundly ideological party.
Many discontented cadres have switched party membership out of revenge or opportunism. This means that the party loyalty for some current top officials may fade quickly.
Like other opposition parties, Zanu PF’s ideological purity and organisational discipline have become increasingly muddied by money politics, factional rivalry and a preoccupation with hero-worshipping Mugabe for party positions.
It is time Zimbabwe rejoined the international community if we are to have a complete transformation. Also, electoral reforms are pertinent in the healing process of the country. The more opposition parties believe in their chances of electoral success, the greater the possibility that election-driven democratisation will succeed.
Electoral revisions, though not comprehensive, should eradicate many anti-democratic rules and institutions in the country.
We believe a competitive political party system must emerge, and an electoral system fairer to all candidates and parties must be put in place.
It is significant to move toward civilian control over the military and do away with political dimwits clogging the country’s development.
