Unresolved succession, real elephant in the room

By Moses Chamboko

Instead of burying their heads in the sand, the ZANU PF leadership must get off their bums and conclusively tackle the issue of succession. Short of this, the tormenting and unrelenting Tsholotsho ghost shall forever haunt the deeply divided house until proper exorcism is done.

For unpossessed men and women to spend three all night meetings discussing the same subject demonstrates that something is terribly wrongly in that camp.

Only victims of unimaginable gullibility would believe that Chinamasa, Goche and Mangwana may have acted own their own and contributed towards a draft constitution that runs parallel to the wishes and aspirations of their master.

I have no doubt in my mind that at every turn, ZANU PF representatives in COPAC consulted their principal before they agreed to any word, sentence or paragraph of the draft. The principal may have shared this vital information with only those closest to him.

What we now see is a scenario where those who feel that they were left out are now making the loudest noise. Chief among them is legendary political chameleon (some would say prostitute) Jonathan Moyo whose political career is staring a cul-de-sac.

It is therefore, not surprising that he sees the draft constitution as the last nail in his political coffin. Fortunately for him, he seems to have a band of blind followers who will go with the wind for as long the wind is blowing against the MDC as well as opposing forces within ZANU PF’s fractured rank and file.

Politburo’s wholesome rejection of the draft constitution as widely reported barely a few days after we were told that 97% of the document had been endorsed is emblematic of the dizzy heights that characterise the ZANU PF circus. All this is traceable to dismal failure at succession planning.

This is the real elephant in ZANU PF’s house of disorder.

Having failed to obtain clarity on the next leader, some cunning members of the former liberation party hijacked the COPAC process to the extent that they managed to sneak in their perceived solution to the prodigious conundrum through presidential running mates.

Anybody who has closely followed the COPAC process would probably guess that this idea which was never a subject of discussion at any of the outreach forums, emanated from ZANU PF. Sensing that the succession issue had been elevated to the national platform albeit nichodemously, those who think they stand to lose out have now been masters at denigrating the constitution-making process.

Dissolution of the DCCs was another shocking blow for them. This is Gushungo at his best; keep them in suspense or at each other’s throat while the clock ticks away. This is a recycled strategy whose efficacy is quite surprising given the intellectual capacity that ZANU PF is presumably endowed with.

It might be useful to revisit COPAC’s key milestones here;

• First All-stakeholders Conference

• Outreach Consultations

• Draft Constitution

• Second All-stakeholders Conference

• Referendum

If ZANU PF has not degenerated into a club of clowns or mob of morons or both, they should all agree that nowhere do the constitutional stages mention that politburo will nocturnally constitute itself into an All-stakeholders Conference or Referendum.

What these men and women should be doing is to articulate their concerns and aspirations, compile them and pass them on to the team that will represent the party at the second conference. These emissaries should convincingly present their case to this conference.

Should they fail to have their views taken onboard, they can then choose to go back to their grassroots and start campaigning vigorously for a No vote.

I don’t think anybody needs to enrol into a school of law to have this basic understanding of this simple process. A forlorn attempt to derail the constitutional process through endless and energy-sapping politburo vigils will not fly given that the average Zimbabwean can easily see through all this shenanigans.

In retrospect, MDC should probably have played their cards closer to the chest instead of prematurely endorsing the draft. This could have left ZANU PF in a much worse quandary as they have now adopted oppositional strategy in their daily transactions with the MDC.

The former revolutionary but moribund party knows very well that it is the MDC position that is most likely to prevail at the referendum, as it did in 2000. Hence, retrogressive forces would rather have a constitutional still birth than endure a repeat of humiliating defeat at the referendum.

This is not to say the current draft is utopia but those who have found time to read it in full or just summarised versions, would agree that it is way better than the current ceasefire document that we have unashamedly used as a national constitution for three decades.

Eddison Zvobgo once put it aptly and precisely “any three men can sit under a tree and write whatever they want but the result does not become a national constitution”. In the same vein, ZANU PF politburo can have as many revised versions of the constitutional draft as they wish but these will not become our national constitution.

I don’t know when ZANU PF shall accept that politburo is a party caucus and not the alpha and omega of our potentially great nation. For as long as the real elephant remains in the room, the party shall continue to be dogged with insurmountable problems.

Moses Chamboko writes from Western Australia. He can be contacted at [email protected]