Handiendi number three! Comrade Dabengwa please step down from Zapu

Handiendi number three! Comrade Dabengwa please step down from Zapu Presidential candidacy and retain your dignity!

By Nomazulu Thata

Jeffry Richards said “It is indeed dangerous for any political party to lose the capacity for self criticism, its awareness of dissent and discontent and its capacity to imagine another way of doing thing.”

Lenin too, in one of his philosophies of dialectic materialism, emphasized the power of critique, “it must be healthy critique,” he said. By that he meant that what one brings to question and critique appropriations in any institution, critique must be complimented with answers all the time. Albeit Einstein said: to define Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

Dear Comrade Dabengwa, we kindly ask you to resign from the presidential candidacy of Zapu and give way to younger people. Your time is up. It is facile to accept presidential candidacy in 2015. The late President Nelson Rolihlahla Madiba Mandela gave an example to all of us in the African region to emulate from him; he resigned after one term in office.

Please be one of those respected leaders in Southern Africa that will give a shining example by officially resigning from a political party and officially hand over the presidential candidacy to much younger cadres of Zapu to take the party Zapu to higher levels.

At this point in time Zapu needs youthfulness, rejuvenation and rebranding to match the ruthlessness and crudeness of Zanu PF. In short a “NEW ZAPU” is appreciated.

In 2013 general elections and Zapu under Dabengwa as a presidential candidate did not garner a single constituency in its name be it in Bulawayo or Matabeleland. Matabeleland, the territory of Zapu traditionally or the legacy that Joshua Mqhabuko Nyongolo Nkomo left in the region.

It could be that the 2013 elections were rigged, I believe they were rigged, all the same, DD was supposed to take responsibility for the loss and decimation of the Zapu in its territory and resign from his post as President of the party. The global politics dictate this! It is his resignation that emblems to signify democracy and its values and principles.

Zimbabwe needs younger generation of leaders to spearhead real and durable development. Let us call them global-generation-40 and not “G-40”. There are dissenting voices and views that are not happy about DD and his candidacy as President, he should listen to them too and not dwell too much on those voices that please him only, or those that he would like to listen to.

Again it is those young voices that are not courageous enough to tell DD to step down. The main line thinking in Bulawayo and Matabeleland is that DD should leave politics altogether.

Comrade Dumiso Dabengwa has nothing more to offer Zimbabwean people even to the residents of Bulawayo. This is a man who gave his all, militarily in the liberation of our country and he needed to say goodbye to politics in the sense of the word to protect his legacy. The electorate has seriously moved on from admiring military and liberation credentials and they seek from their leaders mostly service delivery.

DD cannot come out with any of the service deliveries the electorates demand and expect from him, be it in Bulawayo or Matabeleland. They desperately want to see from him practicalities of services if ever they are to confirm him as their leader: service delivery.

Sadly the Mathebeleland-Zambezi Water Project under DD’s administration is not yet realised to this date. The residents of Bulawayo are asking pertinent questions as to why they do not have one of the fundamental basic needs: water from Zambezi!

In 2013 general elections Zapu lost dismally, we may argue that the elections were rigged. But the 2013 campaigns in the city of Bulawayo told it all that Zapu was a dwarf party against MDC-Tsvangirai, during the campaign period attracted more than 10,000 members in the White city Stadium parallel to which Dabengwa was addressing 500 members, an embarrassment to all of us Zapu members no less.

Did Zapu make any market research as to why people in Bulawayo and Matabeleland territory would vote for Tsvangirai, a younger man without any military credential? ( he ran away from the liberation war in Mozambique)? Did Zapu check their strength and weaknesses to find out why they are unpopular in their own Bulawayo territory against some charismatic man from Buhera?

When Tsvangirai boycotted the by-elections in 2015, still Zapu lost to Zanu dismally in all electorates even in Bulawayo. Some introspection was needed to establish as to why, why, why!

If DD had Mandela mantel he would smell his armpits! It is certainly not enough to go to the social media and wish he was dead! It does not exonerate him from his leadership shortcomings; the people of Bulawayo need water, full stop and period! It is for this reason that he has to quit politics and chase projects that will elevate his legacy.

Now that all but one province, home and abroad, have voted for DD to be the next candidate for the coming 2018 general elections, which electorate is going to vote for a presidential candidate who wishes he was dead? DD wishes he was dead. He said this openly in an interview.

If a charismatic Joshua Nkomo can get 20% of the Zimbabwe electorate in 1980/1985, what makes an uncharismatic DD think he can get the entire country voting for him to be President, does he not realise that it is wishful thinking to nationalise Zapu?

Who is going to vote Zapu in Mashonalands West and East, Manicaland and Masvingo? Does Zapu still today not realise that this country is tribally polarised left right and centre? Zanu tribalised Zimbabwe and Zapu should know this too well. Is Zapu really a political party or a recreational organisation? They still need to do much more to ever defeat Zapu Pf.

When the Vice President of Zapu, Ms Emelia Mukaratiwa asked if she could get a constituency in Matabeleland, she was reproached and laughed at, she was told to go back to Highfields and campaign for Zapu in the middle of Mashonalands, Harare.

In retrospect, the Lady VP was realistic and spot on. There is no Zapu in Mashonalands, there was no Zapu in Mashonalands after 1980, even during the time of the most charismatic politicians of our times: Joshua Nkomo.

Zapu in 2015 do not know that Zapu is dead in Mashonalands, it is a day dream to say Zapu is a national party in highly tribal, most ethnic volatile places of Zimbabwe today. Zimbabwe is divided in ethnic terms, everybody knows this except Zapu.

Comrade DD lost Nkulumani elections when he was still in Zanu in the 1999s. He has lost elections again as a Zapu President political leader in 2013. What is it that he will do to make himself electable in 2018? To go to the media and tell the media he wishes he was dead did not only kill himself politically as a person but he went down with the party Zapu to his pre-grave. He destroyed the party Zapu in that simpleton statement.

Why is Zapu unable to approach Mthwakazi Liberation Front and work together with the young people? Who are they trying to appease if they openly distance themselves from the young men and women of Mthwakazi? Zapu should know by now that Zanu (a ruthless, brutal and barbaric but smart) is not a party to appease by all accounts.

Almost all the people of Matabeleland are agreeable to the grievances highlighted by these young Mthwakazi people.

We differ only in one point: while we talk about devolution they talk about cessation of Zimbabwe and reinstate the State of Mthwakazi. The vibrant leadership of Zapu is in the hands of these young people!!! if Zapu worked together with them!!!!

Zapu should have an advisory board and an active think tank. If DD was advised properly he would never have gone to seek second office as president of Zapu, that advice was very unproductive and destructive to the movement of the fragile party.

The global trends of government leaders and political parties suggest that leaders have to be young and dynamic. We have Obama, Cameron and many other “Global-40” Prime Ministers and Presidents in their 40s. Tony Blair was young in his mid 40s when he took the Labour Party to dizzy heights. He transformed Labour from the tired one to “New electable Labour” We need that youthfulness too for our party Zapu.

Comrade Dumiso Dabengwa is a decorated General, an Intelligence Supremo, with eloquent liberation credentials; he did not need to smear himself in dirty political waters of our times at all. The fight to remove the Zanu from power is for the young and dynamic people of Zimbabwe. We need young people who will rejuvenate the party modernise it and make it electable, not tired horses.

Zapu has a decent constitution and their party ideology is eloquent enough to attract the electorate. Zapu should be advised to think regional and act global ever to occupy those physical spaces that will enable them to effect change in Matabeleland first and foremost.

The characterisation of young leaders such as (Nkala, Noko) are the ones to be given inflections as messengers of our times. Enough of the scatter-shots.