Emmerson Mnangagwa has been sacked as vice-president because he was “disloyal” to President Robert Mugabe. Of all Mugabe’s thugs, henchmen, cronies and sycophants, no one has been more doggedly and foolishly loyal to him than Mnangagwa until he issued his statement denouncing him for privatising and commercialising Zanu PF and the country.
By Wilbert Mukori,Our Reader
The man has done Mugabe’s dirtiest laundry — tasks many people would rather be shot than even touch with a 10-metre stick, Mnangagwa has washed with his bare hands.
In the end, Mnangagwa had to be got rid of. Mugabe and Mnangagwa have jointly perpetrated crimes and injustices against Zimbabweans.
For Mugabe to accuse Mnangagwa of being disloyal to him is the irony of ironies. Mnangagwa was booted out because he was in pole position in the race to succeed Mugabe.
First Lady Grace Mugabe wants to succeed her husband, so Mnangagwa must go. There have been allegedly two attempts to kill him ever since his appointment as vice-president three years ago. What concerns any rational Zimbabwean is not so much that Mnangagwa has been booted out, but justice. Besides Mugabe himself, Mnangagwa indeed should face justice.
Mugabe continues to rule this country as if it is his personal property, as Mnangagwa says. Zanu PF is imploding because ever since he took over the leadership of that party in 1977, he has never allowed anyone else to have any meaningful say in how the party is run.
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There has never been genuine internal Zanu PF party elections; Mugabe has always seen to it that his name is the only one in the hat for the top job.
So, instead of party members electing the leader, it has always been his coronation. He then ensured that he appointed those below him and the party was then asked to rubber-stamp his choices.
Mugabe has done the same thing at national level with more blatant ruthlessness and contemptuous disregard for the constitution and basic rights.
The truth is Mugabe runs a corrupt and incompetent regime with insatiable appetite for power. He is a megalomaniac and narcissist, while his wife’s reckless spending is second to none.
Even after being president for 37 years, Mugabe has not accomplished anything sensible — the truth is he has brought economic ruin and presided over the murder of over 20 000 fellow citizens, to establish and retain his de facto one-party-state dictatorship for many years — yet his desire to cling on to power is even stronger than ever.
Zanu PF is disintegrating because Mugabe will not allow an orderly succession and handover of power to someone else. The factional war which saw the booting out of former vice-president Joice Mujuru from Zanu PF in 2014 and now Mnangagwa is a result of Mugabe framing these two to justify throwing them out so he can continue as leader of the party, while preparing the way for his wife to take over from him.
Mugabe has shown that he would rather drag Zanu PF into the abyss than let someone besides his wife replace him. Sadly, that is exactly what he has done and worse, he has dragged Zimbabwe into the ditch too. Under Mugabe’s rule, unemployment has soared to over 90%, basic services like clean running water, health and education have all but collapsed, 72,3% of our people now live on US$1 or less a day. Zimbabweans are now among the poorest people in Africa. But instead of instituting measures to address these serious and urgent national economic problems, Mugabe has been preoccupied with his party’s factional war, trumping up false charges to justify sacking Mnangagwa and his followers.
Zanu PF’s dictatorship must be cut down, uprooted and burnt so that there is no chance of the system rising and ruling this nation ever again. To be 100% certain that we have ridden this nation of dictatorial rule, we need to implement democratic reforms before the next elections. As long as the elections go ahead with no reforms in place, Zanu PF, whichever faction prevails after the implosion, will rig the vote and stay in power to re-group.
If we cannot stop these elections, given the opposition’s iron resolve to contest them regardless how flawed and illegal the process happens to be, we must make sure the results are declared null and void.
Zimbabwe has paid dearly for allowing Mugabe to create and retain this corrupt dictatorship for all these 37 years. He is determined to install Grace as the country’s next dictator. We can stop him dead in his tracks by making sure the next elections are free, fair and credible, and voting in numbers.
