Today Zanu PF hosts its million-man march in what the organisers claim is to show solidarity with President Robert Mugabe, as if oblivious to the suffering the veteran leader has wrought on Zimbabweans.
NewsDay Comment
The party, like anyone else, have a right to march and demonstrate for whatever cause, but today’s procession could not have come at a worse time and Zanu PF would have done well to mobilise funds and resources for other causes.
The country has had to rely on donor agencies for food aid from the same countries Zanu PF accuses of plotting regime change, yet the party is barely lifting a finger in mitigating the effects of the El Nino-induced drought.
The march comes barely six weeks after Mugabe and the war veterans spent $2 million on a shindig, money that would have been better used elsewhere.
We are not prescribing what Zanu PF should do, but the party apparatchiks could have shown more solidarity with Mugabe by selfless service to Zimbabweans and this would be remembered for ages to come.
In neighbouring South Africa, they have the annual 67 minutes for Mandela Day in honour of their founding leader, the late Nelson Mandela and this is a lasting legacy, where everyone donates just over an hour of their time for the less privileged.
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Such gestures tend to last in people’s minds and are greatly appreciated compared to Zanu PF’s self-serving profligacy.
The million-man march, instead of celebrating Mugabe’s legacy, is now the butt of all jokes and scorn on social media and other platforms and this is hardly doing Mugabe’s legacy any good.
Zanu PF want Zimbabweans to believe Mugabe is selfless and is a shining light for his people, however, nothing is more uppity and selfish than hosting such an expensive fête when nine out of 10 people are out of employment and a third of the nation’s population may be in need of food aid.
There are several ways of celebrating Mugabe’s legacy — if at all it needs celebration — but today’s march is surely not one of them and is an extreme case of misplaced priorities.
Worryingly too are the speculated reasons for the march — that one faction wants to prove its popularity and proximity to the President than the other.
Mugabe also could have lurched onto the idea of the march as a show of popular support, as factionalism gnaws at the very heart of Zanu PF and he wants to use the procession to silence those within his party that he deems too ambitious.
But whatever the reason, this march has come at the least opportune time and portrays the organisers as opportunists seeking to curry favour with the veteran leader and are indifferent to the plight of ordinary citizens.
Zimbabweans deserve better than this.
