A senseless brawl in Zanu PF

By Chris Goko

They say comedy is often used to explain chaos, but the one we are seeing in Zanu PF can hardly be described as rib tickling!

And as President Robert Mugabe’s party enters what was initially billed as one of its most decisive weeks in its 51-year history, all indications are that the virulent attacks against Vice President Joice Mujuru and her allies will be escalated in the home run to next week’s damp squib “elective” congress.

From stories that the late Solomon Mujuru’s embattled widow had mobilised a $21 million war-chest from hostile governments, to theories that her lackeys had sounded out Israeli, and South African assassins to eliminate the 90-year-old leader of our republic, the allegations are piling up and becoming more bizarre by the day.

But the most ridiculous thing about the slew of nasty allegations, including the almost laughably improbable assassination claims, is that none of the people fingered in the astonishing fables, including Labour minister Nicholas Goche, Mujuru herself, former party spokesperson Rugare Gumbo and Presidential Affairs minister Didymus Mutasa, has been arraigned over these “heinous crimes”.

Surely, that alone, coupled with the fact that the supposed plotter-in-chief, Mujuru, still acts for Mugabe when he is away on his many foreign sojourns, suggests that Zimbabweans are more than likely being fed with creative extracts from Agatha Christie’s famed fables, rather than real life attempts on the life of Number One.

All this boggles the mind, particularly when one takes into account that Mugabe’s aides have over the years fought very hard to paint the false impression that Mugabe is a stickler for the narrow and straight, as well as the law.

To that extent, it beggars the question whether Zimbabwe has truly become a complete banana republic where Cabinet ministers plot and set in motion coups with such impunity — and get away with it?

On another note, isn’t Mujuru the very same woman who subordinated her own and family’s interests by accepting the official inquest into the much-debated death of her husband Solomon three years ago — at a time then when she could have literally lit the flames of anarchy as emotions were running very high at the time — amid strong suspicions in some circles that Rex had been done in by his comrades?

Which all makes it the more perplexing why anyone in their right mind would think that this hapless grandmother would now be plotting to send the president to meet his maker.

But then again, this irrational fear and paranoia within the party’s echelons are a tragic political foible, which has always been at the heart of the party’s coagulating crises, and the well-documented problems that have afflicted Zimbabwe since the country attained independence from Britain in 1980.

Even if one grudgingly accepts that many of Zanu PF’s present day problems have a genesis in the alleged ‘bhora musango’ and WikiLeaks debacle, has anyone bothered to analyse whether the thuggish purges of senior officials as well as contrived assassination allegations are the best way to deal with the party’s challenges — particularly given the rational expectation that the party should be busy consolidating its controversial electoral victory of last year?

As things stand, can anyone truly say it is in Mugabe’s and Zanu PF’s interest to be pummelling the likes of Andrew Langa and John Mvundura after such “comrades” worked overtime to score almost miraculous victories for Gushungo and the party in the 2013 plebiscite?

And didn’t Mugabe himself eulogise Ray Kaukonde for Mashonaland East’s “crushing” electoral exploits last year? So, what has changed?

It would appear that no one in the senior echelons of Zanu PF cares that this “new normal”, which has seen the Nicholas Goches of this world and a whole VP’s curriculum vitae have been tossed into the dustbin of history by misguided party zealots who have no discernible track record in the party.

Is this the so-called “gwara remusangano”?

To that extent, many Zimbabweans have found it both ironic and instructive that the “new” leader of the country’s war veterans,

Christopher Mutsvangwa, did not muster enough votes to be automatically elected into the party’s powerful central committee.

Let all those who are blindly or expediently creating anarchy in the party and the country be warned — for Zimbabweans are not fools.

And let these war mongers also contemplate what the results of their reckless behaviour on the party’s fortunes will be come 2018.

Would anyone be really surprised if there is another “Bhora Musango Part 2?

Time will tell.

Chris Goko is the Executive Deputy Editor of the Daily News where this piece was initially published