ZANU PF has amplified its call for President Emmerson Mnangagwa to extend his stay in office to 2030, giving the party and government a year to implement the resolution.
The resolution to extend Mnangagwa’s tenure was made at Zanu PF’s national people’s conference in Bulawayo last year but could not take off amid simmering discord within the governing party.
The 22nd Zanu PF National People’s Conference, which ended in Mutare on Saturday, directed the party and government to “initiate the requisite legislative amendments to give full effect to the resolution to ensure continuity, stability and the sustained transformation of the nation”.
The party’s secretary for legal affairs, who is also Justice minister, was directed to ensure that the resolution is implemented before next year’s 23rd national people’s conference and that all organs of the party, including the central committee and the politburo, must support the implementation of the resolution.
Zanu PF believes Mnangagwa has performed well to deserve the extension of his term. Zanu PF leaders have been singing loudly, “if ain't broke, don’t fix it”, notwithstanding that such a move is an affront to the constitutionalism, Mnangagwa has been preaching about.
There has been a stampede to make Mnangagwa’s omnipresence assured.
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On one hand is the narrative that there is no one capable of taking Zimbabwe to the promised land other than Mnangagwa from within or outside the governing Zanu PF party.
This draws parallels to the late former President Robert Mugabe, who was seen as an angel who admitted candidates to heaven.
On the other hand, there is the deification of Mnangagwa.
Mnagagwa’s birthday, September 15, will become a public holiday. The day was named Munhumutapa Day last year and there have been calls to make it a public holiday.
In December last year, Cabinet, which Mnangagwa chairs, resolved to rename the multi-million-dollar Mbudzi Interchange Trabablas Interchange in recognition of Mnangagwa’s “visionary leadership”.
Trabablas was one of Mnangagwa’s war names. Ten roads have been named after Mnangagwa as loyalists seek to elevate the 83-year-old leader to an icon.
This dovetails with a cult of personality where a public figure (such as a political leader) is deliberately presented to the people of a country as a great person who should be admired and loved.
In a working paper, Personality cults in modern politics: Cases from Russia and China, Xin Lu and Elena Soboleva noted that the reception of a leader's charisma and the embodiment of a higher mission in the leader are not sufficient to ensure the cult's endurance.
In a modern political system, once a cult has been erected, institutionalising it as part of everyday practice with a defined code to follow is necessary to sustain it. Institutionalisation, they said, includes commemorative events and formularised practices.
Stories, depictions and any fragments attesting to the superiority of the leader are so dispersed and deeply rooted that the cult develops as an omnipresent part of all institutions. To live in such a context is to be submerged by an "institutionalised awe", which is dispersed throughout the entire society.
There has been a glut of presidential schemes, from the Presidential Cotton Scheme, Presidential Tick Grease Scheme, Presidential Borehole Scheme and Presidential Youth Scheme, among others.
All these are designed to make Mnangagwa omnipresent. Last week government's announcement of a US$150 presidential special bonus for civil servants was touted as the icing on the cake.
The bonus, which is in addition to the annual bonus, will be paid in two equal instalments of US$75 each beginning in November and is meant to “provide festive season relief and recognise dedicated service”, according to government.