Mutambara moots political comeback

By Pamela Shumba

Former Deputy Prime Minister in the inclusive Government, Professor Arthur Mutambara, yesterday said he is considering bouncing back into politics.

Mutambara, who was MDC leader, withdrew from politics and public life at the end of the inclusive Government in July 2013. He resurfaced last month to launch an autobiography, In Search of the Elusive Zimbabwean Dream: An Autobiography of Thought Leadership (Volume One.).

The autobiography details his life from his formative stage as a child, his stint as a student at the University of Zimbabwe, up to the time when he was one of the principals in the Global Political Agreement in 2009.

He launched it in Harare and Johannesburg, South Africa last month and in Bulawayo yesterday, at an event attended by politicians, academics and civic organisations and members of different political parties.

Responding to questions from guests at yesterday’s launch in Bulawayo, Mutambara said he was revising his retirement from politics.

“I retired from politics by the way but I have to revise my retirement. I seek to gain political power, combine it with ideas and make a difference in this country,” said Mutambara.

He called on Zimbabweans to move away from nationalism and embrace globalisation for economic revival.

“My triangle talks about vision, strategy and execution. Execution is missing. We’re very good at planning and dreaming but we lack execution. I’m a believer of execution.

“A poorly cast strategy is better than a perfect strategy which is never implemented. The Zimbabwean dream is the African dream. Think about it, every African nation has a problem around those areas, inclusive economic growth, shared economic prosperity, peace, stability and freedom are missing in Malawi, Rwanda, Nigeria and many other African countries,” said Mutambara.

He emphasised on the need to work on creating and developing the Zimbabwean dream through working with other African countries.

“The framework is applicable to Malawi, DRC and Rwanda. But more importantly under globalisation, Zimbabwe won’t make it alone but as Sadc, South Africa won’t make it alone but as Sadc.

“Just 55 million people in South Africa is too small a number, Zimbabwe has only 14 million people, Botswana two million. These are small numbers. You can’t negotiate with the Chinese with two million people when they have 1,3 billion people,” said Mutambara.

Numbers, he added, are fundamental under globalisation.

“We’ll make it as we think about Sadc, the free trade area, Comesa, East African Community -600 million people. Imagine if we were to go and talk about 1,1 billion people in Africa to the Americans, Chinese or the Japanese.

“They will listen to us not out of love but out of economics because we represent 1,1 billion people as a market and source base,” said Mutambara.

He added national competitiveness and attractiveness was a thing of the past and there was need to talk about regional attractiveness.

“As Zimbabweans let’s make sure that we work with others to create a united and integrated African continent. This will allow us to succeed as Africans.

You’ll never be respected as an African until we’ve done well as a continent. “We can’t be a super star unless the African economy is a superstar economy.”

“Our destinies as Africans are super twined together. Be an African first, a member of Sadc second and a Zimbabwean third,” said Prof Mutambara.

Speaking at the same occasion, academic Professor Phineas Makhurane commended Professor Mutambara for writing his book, saying he was proud of him.

“I’m proud to produce such a student. I’m encouraging fellow academics not to think about becoming ministers, but administrators.

“Let’s think of bringing new ideas that Professor Mutambara has brought in the different sectors of the economy,” said Prof Makhurane. The Chronicle