THERE is nothing a Zanu PF government can offer to Zimbabweans.
Column by Henry Masuku
In the past three decades, there are fundamental decisions that the party has made which have been instrumental in the changes that the country has gone through.
As elections approach, it is prudent to engage in an extensive analysis of what the party’s clenched fist can posit to the electorate ahead of other parties yearning for a total overhaul of the country’s political, socio-cultural and economic fortunes.
It is quite common and, in effect, prudent to begin with the post-independence policies adopted by the Zanu PF regime in the first decade.
Most people will agree that the path of reconstruction from colonial rule of this magnificent country was arduous although tainted by political corruption which would later prove disastrous to a people in Matabeleland and the Midlands.
The Gukurahundi atrocities at the behest of Zanu PF on a defenseless people, while carried out for immediate political solutions, proved to be part of a wider plot that has permeated these parts for decades after.
The wider plot was to ensure that the people remain marginalised and less developed.
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There is all the evidence in the world to show that people in the region are less developed and universities have failed to equip local people due to poor education standards in these parts.
While this has led to massive influx of people into neighbouring countries, the remaining people have not been able to make meaningful decisions in their own spheres due to lack of adequate education. This is the decade before 1990 which also heralded rampant corruption in the governance system amid the quest to make Zimbabwe a unitary State.
The 1990s brought the worst-ever decisions for the whole country when Zimbabwe accepted the Economic Structural Adjustment Programme.
The majority of the working class was rendered jobless. There were severe company closures and the country took a downward turn towards hunger and untold poverty levels.
It is Zanu PF that was at the helm and no mitigatory strategy was implemented to ensure that people were saved from the economic hardships which soon ensued.
It was clear then, as it is clear now, that the country could not be entrusted into the hands of Zanu PF. At the end of this decade, people then decided to form alternatives to govern the country courting the wrath of the Zanu Pf regime still has yet to account for hundreds of people who were abducted, maimed, killed and those who disappeared.
More was to follow in the decade between 2000 and 2010. Zanu PF escalated violence, persecution of opponents and threw the rule of law to the wind. Grabbing of prime farmland escalated and the party engaged the brutal uniformed forces to engage in an illegal exercise called Operation Murambatsvina which left millions homeless and children out of school.
The regime printed money at will escalating inflation levels and leading to massive food and fuel shortages.
Many people died in hospitals due to lack of treatment which death, in my opinion, was a genocide which the party still has to account for.
But still the party sticks its head above the water and claims that it can be trusted with another five-year term!
In this decade, which is a decider in the direction the country will take, Zanu PF has embarked on yet another blunder for the economy which seeks to drive out investment while enriching a few in this party.
The smash and grab indigenisation plot spearheaded by Youth Development, Indigenisation and Empowerment minister Saviour Kasukuwere has saved to enrich a few well-connected people in Zanu PF, yet the majority continues to wallow in poverty.
It is true that this country has so much potential in terms of improving its gross domestic product, but Zanu PF policies have rotated around corruption and disregard for the rest of the people.
Yet Zanu PF wants to be entrusted with another five-year term! Of course, there are times when it is not prudent to judge the history of an entity to perceive the future, but what Zanu PF is holding at the moment is poison and will kill this country.
Listening to proponents when they speak though their erstwhile mouthpieces one can discern violence, war, desperation, and a clear lack of vision to vanquish the political quagmire currently facing the country.
There is no respite for Zanu PF and there is no proof that a leorpard can change its spots.
It is indeed true that no one can change an idea whose time has come and in this regard elections offer for the majority of Zimbabweans a chance for a breath of fresh air. And yet, Zanu PF wants another five-year term.
Henry Masuku is the MDC-T information officer in Bulawayo
