Manoeuvres by President Robert Mugabe to purge dissenting voices in the Zimbabwe National Liberation War Veterans’ Association (ZNLWVA) show the President’s duplicity to fulfil his insatiable love for power and personal gains. NewsDay Comment
His use of a carrot and stick in dealing with the ZNLWVA leader Christopher Mutsvangwa and others also shows that the Zanu PF leader will stop at nothing to achieve his goal to eliminate those that threaten his continued stranglehold on power.
Clearly, it appears it does not matter to Mugabe whether the move is good for the citizenry or not, what is certainly clear in his mind is the continued control of the country by his dynasty.
It is not so-much about this particular group, but how the whole issue is playing out before the citizenry. It is crazier for Mugabe to push for the new ZNLWVA leadership to impose his wishes among the rank and file of the former liberation fighters in time for the 2018 elections.
We are aware that the ex-fighters have made it clear they will not campaign for Mugabe in the 2018 elections hence his moves to remove the group that has fallen out with him.
Really, if Mugabe believes that leadership change does solve critical governance issues, is it not time for him to kindly surrender power given the political, social and economic collapse in the country?
We wonder if it is not Mugabe who authored all of Zimbabwe’s post-independence problems and yet he is still sticking around 36 years on. How long has the Mutsvangwa-led executive been leading the ZNLWVA? How many war veterans’ executives have come and gone?
The move to silence the war veterans by pushing out the Mutsvangwa-led executive is as ridiculous as it sounds in that if Mugabe himself is too stubborn to resign after 36 years in power why should he expect the ZNLWVA leadership to resign even before their term of office elapses?
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For the record, Zimbabweans would have hoped that the need for leadership change was right there in the national presidency.
There is no doubt that Zimbabweans who voted Mugabe to power at Independence in 1980, could have let down the country by failing to interrogate the type of leader the person they were voting for was. It appears they used emotions instead of reasoning.
It is, therefore, hoped that as the nation gears for the 2018 election, the electorate should interrogate all the aspiring leaders intending to contest in the polls with a view to come up with a people servant.
We applaud the courts for respecting the laws in so far as the ZNLWVA issue is concerned. Due process must be followed, and Mugabe must be prepared to be bound by the country’s statutes. It is unfortunate that his leadership has turned to be dictatorial at the detriment of the country.
Was it not Mugabe who told the Mutsvangwa executive in April this year that the ZNLWVA was a welfare organisation which had nothing to do with Zanu PF? So, if it’s for welfare issues, he should leave the ZNLWVA to deal with their welfare organisation and not poke his long nose into their affairs. In any case he fired all of them from Zanu PF, so leave them to deal with their personal issues.
There is no doubt that these latest tactics show Mugabe intends to abuse the war veterans once again to campaign for him through coercion.
Whatever the outcome of the discussions fronted by War Veterans minister Tshinga Dube, this will show Zimbabweans the calibre of the country’s war veterans.
Either the war veterans are forever stupid or they remain resolute on good governance and justice for the good of Zimbabwe until change of national leadership.
