AS meek Zimbabweans, we are slowly accepting the grim fate of another five gruelling years under the hegemony of Zanu PF.
– MASOLA WA DABUDABU [email protected]
We are constantly bombarded with reminders that Zanu PF took their opponents to the cleaners with a landslide victory.
We take solace from reading in between the political lines. We detect a Zanu PF that is experiencing some bitter after-taste in the mouth.
The taste of its victory is not as sweet as it would want us to believe. It is a victory too large to believe. It is a fraud!
Imagine the world record breaking sprinter Usain Bolt racing a group of under-fed and lethargic prisoners from Zimbabwe’s Chikurubi Maximum Prison.
Add to the constraints of the disadvantaged competitors shackled or in leg irons! Just like Zanu PF, he would feel some emptiness in his victory.
Zanu PF had hoped for a victory big enough to give them some semblance of majority, but small enough to keep the influence of the opposition within reach.
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The absence of the opposition from Zanu PF’s reach did not augur well for the party’s grand machinations.
It is just as bad as having no whites to blame for there being no more farms to invade and no dissidents to blame for the neglect in Matabeleland.
It is like there being no economic sanctions to blame for the never-ending economic strife and poor harvests.
Zanu PF’s scapegoat syndrome requires the continued presence of a black sheep to apportion unfair blame over.
In Zanu PF’s survival gospel, there should always be a scapegoat to atone for all the failures.
Scapegoats fertilise the party’s survival instincts. Zanu PF views a scapegoat as an instantaneous repository or bottomless container for failure.
In its perverted scheming, Zanu PF had not budgeted for a victory of that magnitude. It may have taken stock of the loopholes to assure it of victory, but it did not think its scheme would be that prolific in handing it victory.
It did not expect its unholy plotting and planning to give it all the seats in areas it has no vested interests such as in Matabeleland.
A particular case of Zanu PF not having been sure of the applicability of its scheme in opposition strongholds was demonstrated by its chairman’s decision to contest as a lowly senatorial candidate for Matabeleland South Province instead of facing embarrassing annihilation as a parliamentary candidate for the Mangwe seat.
Simon Khaya Moyo in particular and Zanu PF in general was all aware of the difficulty of wrestling the Matabeleland seats which included the Mangwe parliamentary seat from the MDC. Zanu PF fielded parliamentary candidates in Matabeleland to cause ripples, not waves.
If at all Khaya Moyo had been sure the plot would thicken in his party’s favour, he would have opted to run in the legislative race for Mangwe.
He was able to express his natural scepticism on the likelihood of any positive outcomes out of the grand scheme by volunteering to stand as a senatorial candidate instead of standing as a parliamentary candidate.
Khaya-Moyo was not the only bigwig who opted for a lesser role with better prospects due to not being sure whether the plan to defraud the electorate would work.
Indeed most of the highly positioned and prominent Zanu PF leaders in Matabeleland crowded the senatorial seats. On the other hand, the contested parliamentary seats in Matabeleland were flooded with nonentities in the exception of safe zones such as Beitbridge East, Insiza North and Umguza.
When the results of a clean sweep in Matabeleland were announced there should have been some silence in the room.
Zanu PF did not want to win Matabeleland.
It would have preferred the province remained in the hands of the opposition as a way of abdicating from any developmental responsibility.
As it is, Zanu PF leaders have to grudgingly thank the people of Matabeleland for overwhelmingly giving them an unassailable majority.
The catch is that the party does not have much financial leverage to thank the recently conquered territories with.
Financial obligations across the provinces have just gone up. This includes the costs of rehabilitating all the massive territories regained from the MDC which are just too vast. The new one-party state cannot print any United States dollar bills.
In the eyes of the great vanguard party, this victory is not worth the trouble. It is a victory that is not sweet at all. It is a victory that is worth muted celebrations.
Instead of celebrating their overwhelming victory, Zanu PF is internally mourning the untimely demise of the MDC. It is a case of the winners needing the losers more than the losers needing the winners.
Some MDC-T-controlled urban councils are not helping the situation at all by voting for Zanu PF councillors in mayoral contests. This is piling more pressure on the sour victory and rendering the Zanu PF quandary worse.
In their temples of doom, Zanu PF principals are doing intense soul-searching on the magnitude and intensity of their harvests. They sowed winds and the harvest consists of swirling whirlwinds that need to be reaped fast.
Surely Zanu PF is wondering why it put into operation measures that literally relegated the opposition into oblivion.
Who is going to be blamed for the spiralling cost of living?
Who is going to be blamed for the erratic supply of electricity?
Who is going to be blamed for the scarcity of liquidity?
The NRZ locomotives do not choo-choo anymore! Who is going to be blamed for this? Zanu PF needs the opposition to blame for this.
They cannot afford to lose the only remaining defence for their primitive approach to the country’s economy.
Masola wa Dabudabu is a social commentator
