ALMOST three months after Zimbabwe went to the polls to choose a President, Members of Parliament and councillors, the country’s political and socio-economic situation resembles that of a nation at war.
Food prices are steadily rising as the country’s currency — whose second largest note the ZWL$50 has since been dumped by informal traders and commuter transport operators — continues to weaken against the United States dollar, meaning that it does not look good on the economic front.
On the political front, nothing looks good as well after the main opposition, Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC), decided to temporary withdraw from Parliament and local authorities following the sudden recall of some of its legislators and councillors by someone purporting to be the party’s interim secretary general.
Mind you, this is an opposition which has almost half of the country’s MPs and controls the capital city, the second largest city and various other urban areas, so — like it or not — if they sneeze many of us catches a cold.
The bottomline is that nothing is moving in a positive direction for this country and the earlier President Emmerson Mnangagwa and his Zanu PF colleagues realise that they cannot go it alone as far as the country’s future is concerned, the better it will be for all of us.
For the sake of the country’s future, we implore Mnangagwa and Zanu PF to come down to mother earth because it is increasingly becoming clear that it is an exercise in futility for the ruling party and its leader to insist that things will work under their sole control despite the disputations around the August 23 and 24 polls which has triggered concern in the region and internationally.
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Ironically, history has taught us that if the ruling party chooses to work with the opposition, the country prospers as the 2009 to 2013 Government of National Unity (GNU) arrangement proved. Even if another GNU might not be ideal for Zanu PF or CCC, we implore the two protagonists to please agree on something for the sake of the country’s future.
This is not the time for Zimbabweans to be divided, given the state of the world which is currently ablaze as wars flare up.
CCC leader Nelson Chamisa claims that President Mnangagwa is willing to talk to him and Zanu PF also claims CCC has sent emissaries to the party for talks. What is the problem if the two sides know and accept that dialogue is the only way to save this nation?
As we have pointed out before, Mnangagwa and Chamisa (together with their parties) will lose absolutely nothing, except their egos, by engaging each other.
It is currently sticking like a sore thumb that there is something gravely wrong in this country and Mnangagwa and his party cannot afford to turn a blind eye to this glaring reality, hoping that they will somehow pull a Houdini act and escape the troubles affecting this country.
The problems bedevilling Zimbabwe will haunt us for the next five years and we will economically remain in the doldrums as long as we stay divided as a people.
Unite we stand, divided we wallow in misery.