Grace, a virtual law unto herself

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Destruction of Zanu PF from within is a project whose time has come. With the party First Secretary, President Robert Mugabe apparently confounded by the rapidity, he has essentially lost control of the party as the chasm deepens.

Destruction of Zanu PF from within is a project whose time has come. With the party First Secretary, President Robert Mugabe apparently confounded by the rapidity, he has essentially lost control of the party as the chasm deepens.

By Cyprian Ndawana

Squabbling is rendering the party dysfunctional. Amid the intensity of intraparty bickering, which features cadre versus cadre, the animosity spells of a destruction project whose time has come. It is inevitable that there will be no ceasefire until the party is reduced to rubble.

First Lady, Grace Mugabe, has become a virtual law unto herself. She is beyond reproach and restrain, as evidenced by her gloating over her immunity to ride roughshod over all and sundry. Her ascendancy to the politburo perched her on a pedestal.

Despite self claims to being ‘Mother’, Grace is not conducting herself motherly. She instead is footling, bragging that she is not Mugabe’s girlfriend, but his wife, and should her husband age to such an extent that he no longer can walk, she would cart him to the office.

Essentially, her utterance are meant to pour chilled water on the Presidential succession debate. Yet, it is for personal as opposed to national reasons why she is determined to thwart the debate even as forces of nature are mounting against the overstayed President.

If ever there is a sad chapter of Zimbabwean history, it is one that is unfolding in our midst. With the country ravaged to the scale of New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, it is desponding that Zanu PF, by all accounts, is practically flatfooted.

However, true to the adage, nothing succeeds like a project whose time has come, the ruination and subsequent demise of the party is no longer a case of probabilities, but an absolute certainty. As I see it, Zanu PF is headed for total collapse.

The dog eat dog scenario prevalent in the party speaks loud and clear about the total loss of sense of purpose. In fact, there is an absence of the spirit of camaraderie.All party structures no longer have fraternal cohesion.

Most cadres are frozen in their shells, fearful of the prospects of the dreaded vote of no confidence being handed down on them. An injury to one is no longer an injury to all, but pleasure to others.

With 36 years of independence culminating in such sprawling residential settlements as ones on the peripheral of Harare, Eastview, formally Caledonia Farm and Northlea Park, Zanu PF failures are too glaring to conceal.

Yet, the party does not apologise even for its markedly missed electoral promise of creating two million jobs.

Instead, it is engrossed in brawling. And, what makes the intraparty feud all the more foolhardy is that 92 years old Mugabe is intransigent on staying put at the helm of the party.

Every social structure, just as is with physical ones, owes its strength to the pillars it stands on. For Zanu PF, shared solidarity among cadres is the pillar on which the party has erectly stood since its inception in 1963. Take away solidarity and the party crumbles like a deck of cards.

With the party now on free fall, it is principally incumbent upon Mugabe to salvage the vestige. The onus rests squarely on him to restore the party to the ideals of its founding fathers who obviously are turning in their graves. Yet, he now is virtually impotent, who at best can only pursue the course of least resistance.

Although Mugabe has repeatedly denounced factionalism, giving it a bad image, history has it that Zanu PF started as a faction which broke away from Zapu. His vehement denunciation of factionalism is unfortunate, given that his party started as one.

On a similar vein, Grace is also castigating “small houses”, yet, it is in the public domain that she is formally one. The white wedding which she hyped about at a rally does not earn her bragging rights as she received blessings of the holy matrimony after years of being a mistress.

With the unprecedented teargassing of war veterans, whose patron is Mugabe, what more evidence may one ask for to prove that he has lost control of the party? Findings of a study on gorillas are pertinent in understanding the goings on in Zanu PF under his watch.

Social scientists found out that when a gorilla leader ages such that he cannot protect his territory, females and babies, managing only a faded growl while leaning on a tree, his troop becomes restive. Fights for dominance erupt among males as they sense a leadership void.

Given that gorillas are regarded as man’s closest mammal relative, the findings on troop life are credible clues for an appreciation of the state of affairs in Zanu PF, a party with an apparent ageing wrought leadership void.

Despite Mugabe being lauded as the sole source of power and Presidential candidate for the 2018 harmonised elections, he has lost control of the party. Amid the perpetual disintegration of the party, accentuated by the abrasive Grace, Mugabe stands on the threshold.

At no time has all his claims to being a nationalist been subjected to such public scrutiny as now. Time is of the essence; he has to rid himself of the smokescreen. With the said crunch politburo meeting failing to rise to billing, and his confidant Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa frazzled by Grace, Mugabe has no time to stare at the crystal ball.

Mugabe is the author of the party’s demise. His tepid State of Zanu PF press conference delivered flanked by the Vice-Presidents confirmed that destruction of Zanu PF from within is a project whose time has come. The low energy Presidium does not inspire confidence.