POLITICAL tension is once again rising in Zanu PF.
It feels like dé jàvu — the same factional fights that consumed the party in the build-up to November 2017.
Back then, it was G40 versus Lacoste.
Today, it is the ED2030 enthusiasts, those whispering about 2033, even a presidency without an end versus those against extension of power.
For ordinary Zimbabweans, it is the same tired script: the elite fighting over power while the people wait in vain for change.
When Robert Mugabe was finally pushed out, citizens poured onto the streets in their millions.
The euphoria was raw, the relief overwhelming.
People danced with soldiers, honked horns, filled the National Sports Stadium with hope.
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The promises that followed were sweet: jobs, food security, working hospitals, reliable electricity.
But what came instead was a mirage.
Those dreams turned to dust.
The system remained intact — a machine designed not to serve the people, but to feed itself.
Now, as the Zanu PF elite tear into each other again, the rhetoric is about “extending terms”, “retirement in 2028” or “constitutionalism”.
But let us not be fooled.
These are not debates about democracy or the will of the people.
They are battles for privilege, protection and patronage.
The ordinary citizen is nowhere in this equation.
This spectacle is all too familiar.
It is not about democracy, service delivery or the future of the country.
Whether President Emmerson Mnangagwa stays, goes or extends — the outcome for the masses will be unchanged: poverty, joblessness, broken hospitals, failing schools and unending power cuts.
Factional wars are dressed up as national questions, but in truth, they are selfish games.
And when the dust settles, nothing will have changed for the millions struggling to put sadza on the table.
Zimbabweans have been there before.
We are being asked again to cheer for one faction over another, to pick sides in fights that have nothing to do with us.
But the bitter truth is this: after the silly season, the only things left for the people will be bruised egos, dashed hopes and a deepening sense of betrayal.
The ruling party is at it again.
Different names, different factions, but the same tired politics.
The elite jostle for control, while the economy collapses, hospitals run out of basics, teachers leave the classrooms, and millions struggle for survival.
The tragedy is that these power struggles are always framed as “national issues”.
In reality, they are narrow contests for influence inside a single party.
The citizens are reduced to bystanders — used as cheering crowds when it suits the moment, then forgotten once the battles are won or lost.
What history has shown is clear: whether one faction triumphs or another, ordinary Zimbabweans gain nothing.
No jobs, no food security, no public services.
Only fresh promises, recycled slogans and deeper disappointment.
Zanu PF’s endless succession dramas are not about the people.
They are about the system protecting itself.
Until that system changes, Zimbabweans will remain trapped in cycles of poverty, hopelessness and betrayal.
Until leaders put the people at the centre, Zanu PF’s endless succession dramas will remain just that — empty theatre.
The question is not who wins in Zanu PF’s corridors of power.
The real question is: when will ordinary Zimbabweans win?
