AFTER the shock results of the July 31 elections — up to now victors are grappling to understand how they garnered so much support overnight — there is still one task which Zanu PF, even in it’s wildest celebrations, will have to grapple with.
Zanu PF’s biggest challenge is to prove that it has what it takes to transform this country. The party has already started reneging on the promises it made before the elections. While the MDC-T has very little to prove to anyone in the next five years, it is the game as played by Zanu PF that shall determine once and for all the truth that the party is finished and doomed.
There is very little doubt that Zanu PF will not transform in the next five years.
The party will stick to it’s smash-and-grab indigenisation process no matter how disastrous it has proven to be. Surely it’s a matter of time before their long arm reaches for foreign-owned banks and all institutions that have been giving a flicker of hope to the economy. After the grabbing of institutions and companies, Zanu PF will chase away employees and employ their nephews and uncles as part of the great wheel of corruption that has become institutionalised in every sector of the economy.
For the next five years, police shall man our roads. They will solicit bribes from every commuter omnibus. They will harass motorists and ensure that when drivers see the “POLICE AHEAD” sign, they won’t feel secure, but that sense of insecurity will grip them to the marrow.
They will still tell you to go and bring your attacker because they have no car. Dockets will be written on the basis of who reports first and the victim, especially from the opposition, will always be the perpetrator.
It is clear that for the next five years, Honourable Joseph Chinotimba will be in Parliament making monumental decisions on behalf of the country. Positions shall be taken and numerical decisions shall be reached which will reflect Zanu PF domination in Parliament. There is no forgetting that opposition MPs shall be thrown out, victimised and chastised by this “revolutionary” party. Of course, as President Robert Mugabe has shown, if the insults on MDC-T president Morgan Tsvangirai and indeed across the region are anything to go by, the opposition has no room in the next five years.
The next five years shall for every Zimbabwean, be telling for all on how Zanu PF has destroyed Zimbabwe! The diamonds in Marange will continue to be mined and proceeds will not be given to the State, but disappear without anyone accounting for them. The Treasury shall run dry and no accountability measures shall be put in place.
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The economy will certainly go into recession and corruption will reign supreme. Food security will plunge and strikes will be the order of the day. Zanu PF promised hefty increases in civil servants salaries. What boggles the mind is where the increases in salaries will come from without any meaningful intervention into the productive sector.
It is also quite clear that our friends the Chinese shall be with us for quite some time dropping one or two words in Mandarin for those who care to listen. They shall bring their cheap goods and abuse our workforce. The Chinese shall be rewarded for supporting Zanu PF and given contracts lasting beyond our lives. In this very decade, the look East policy will come to full throttle as Zanu PF shows the West that it has friends.
Zanu PF will promote propaganda, hate speech and divisions within the people through the State media which belch out vitriol every day. Our children shall be shown selected parts of our history behind the gyrations of the kongonya dance which has become synonymous with the regime. Our media shall continue to be gagged, propagating no development agenda, but propping power politics at the expense of economic recovery.
The next five years will be full of trauma. Hospitals will become the final resting place for all of us unless the Chinese donate medicine and equipment. The level of suffering is surely set to increase while the big chéfs in Zanu PF enjoy the fruits of illgotten wealth.
While this coming half-decade brings more suffering than hope, the opposition has more time to prepare for the future.
The values that have been expressed by the opposition through the Constitution will triumph over evil. Zimbabweans want to be able to live freely without fear. Zimbabweans want room for innovation and creativity. The economy needs to be revived and isolation through skewed Zanu PF intransigence will not help.
The opposition has room to go to the people and prove that the gospel of good governance — which encompasses fundamental principles of accountability and transparency, liberty, security sector reforms, media reforms and judicial reforms — remain key elements in the resuscitation of our economy.
The key to development and revitalisation of the Zimbabwean economy will surely take more than five years. But while this happens, the opposition should regroup. Henry Masuku is the information officer for the MDC-T
