Patrick Zhuwao: Why members of the Security Services are voting for Nelson Chamisa

By Patrick Zhuwao

The security services are voting for Nelson Chamisa because they, more than anyone else, know intimately that perpetuating the coup regime will lead to bloodshed. 

They are aware that the deep distrust and deadly tensions between Mnangagwa and Chiwenga will definitely degenerate into all-out war.

The lives of members of the security services will be put at risk since they will be used to fight each other in pursuit of the greedy and personal ambitions of Mnangagwa and Chiwenga.

Already, two of their members unfortunately lost their lives needlessly as a result of the ZANU PF bomb of 23rd June 2018. Consequently, the security services are going beyond just voting for Chamisa. They are also participating in two very noble patriotic endeavours which will avert the looming armed confrontation between Mnangagwa and Chiwenga.

Members of the security services have been exposing the junta’s attempts to steal the people’s vote. They are also preparing themselves to accept Chamisa as the democratically elected popular President of Zimbabwe’s 2nd Republic.

As demonstrated more visibly since Thursday 12th June 2018, social media messages from police officers through-out Zimbabwe are alerting the whole world to the junta’s futile attempts at manipulating the electoral processes.

The security services are highlighting the abuse of the electoral process to ensure that their vote is not stolen. By ensuring that the vote of the security services is not stolen, the security services are also ensuring that the vote of the people of Zimbabwe is also not stolen.

But more importantly, the security services are communicating that they are ready and willing to accept the people’s vote. There have been some loud junta propagandists that have been trying to hoodwink the nation into apathy by lying that the security services will not accept the inevitable result of Chamisa winning the election. Vanoreva nhema (they are lying).

These lies are designed to discourage people from voting for Chamisa. The security services will accept Chamisa’s victory and will gladly serve under him. Allow me to explain how I have gradually realised that the security services will accept Chamisa’s victory by taking you back two years.

The ZANU PF Youth League’s Million Man March of 26th May 2016 demonstrated that Zimbabwe was ready for young leadership, similar to the leadership of Chamisa. The overwhelming turn-out at the Million Man March made it abundantly evident that young people were emerging as a political force to be reckoned.

In response, Chiwenga in his capacity then as Commander of the Defence Forces, made a chillingly unconstitutional declaration on 18th April 2017 that war veterans are the stockholders of Zimbabwe and that the rest of us are mere stakeholders. That coup pre-cursor declaration contravenes the Constitution of Zimbabwe which recognises everyone as equal.

Since that time, I have been concerned and worried for the past two years that our security services would not accept a democratic outcome that yields a young person who is not a veteran of the liberation struggle as President. Chiwenga’s utterances represented the “chinhu chedu” (our thing) entitlement mantra which needed to be addressed given that Zimbabwe’s demographics were pointing to the need to empower young people with leadership opportunities.

A conciliatory approach was adopted. President Mugabe attempted to assure the likes of Chiwenga by putting into place a transitional plan that would have seen Comrade Sidney Sekeramayi, as a war veteran, succeeding President Mugabe in this 2018 election. Comrade Sekeramayi would have taken on the responsibility of easing in a new generation of young leadership for the 2023 elections.

The Presidential Youth Interface rallies were specifically designed to introduce and prepare to elevate Comrade Sekeramayi. Unfortunately President Mugabe’s succession plan was scuttled by false narratives that sought to wrongly suggest that either Amai Dr Grace Mugabe or Comrade Saviour Kasukuwere were due to succeed President Mugabe.

I vividly recall President Mugabe making fun of Comrade Kasukuwere at the Bindura Presidential Youth Interface as he narrated how the so-called G40 faction in ZANU PF had its origins in Barrack Obama’s rise to the American Presidency at the age 47. Similarly, President Mugabe has consistently stated that Amai Dr Grace Mugabe was never meant to succeed him.

He has unwaveringly declared as much during the Presidential Youth Interface Rallies as well as during his last interaction with the media on 15th March 2018. Those false narratives were used to justify the 15 November 2017 coup. Mnangagwa and Chiwenga sought to convince the whole world that they were saving Zimbabwe from Amai Dr Grace Mugabe’s ambitions to lead Zimbabwe.

Even now, the junta seeks to scuttle the momentum of generational renewal being led by Nelson Chamisa by falsely seeking to suggest a pact between Chamisa and Amai Dr Grace Mugabe. That is utter nonsense and hogwash! When President Mugabe opted to resolve the 15 November 2017 coup politically, some of us got together to establish NPF as a political tool to democratically restore constitutionalism.

As the NPF’s founding members, we were also of the view that NPF needed a distinguished war veteran as a transitional leader, along the same way that Comrade Sekeramayi was meant to succeed President Mugabe.

This is why the founding members of NPF had earmarked Retired Brigadier General Ambrose Mutinhiri to be President in the Founding National Executive Committee of NPF despite several warnings and misgivings about his lack of capacity to take on the onerous responsibility of dismantling the junta.

The police service’s rejection of the junta’s attempts to steal the election on 12th June 2018 has given me added confidence that the electoral will of the people shall prevail. Some of us have been interacting with progressive members of the security services since the 15 November 2017 coup.

They have been giving us the confidence to know that the coup was the work of a very small group. The majority of the security services did not participate in the 15 November 2017 coup. The bulk of the command element was kept as virtual prisoners at KGVI Barracks from Monday 13th November 2017 when Chiwenga addressed a press conference.

The actual coup operations were carried out by two units of the ZDF whilst all other units did not react since their commanders were virtual prisoners. I am now even more convinced that the security services have never been and are not part of Mnangagwa and Chiwenga’s small group that subscribe to the “chinhu chedu” entitlement mantra.

It is such a relief to realise Zimbabwe’s security services raised the alarm about the impending theft of the election on Thursday 12th June 2018. The alarm indicated that the security services are no longer willing to be abused by Mnangagwa and Chiwenga’s small clique that have appropriated Zimbabwe by claiming to be its stockholders at the exclusion of all other citizens.

Zimbabwe’s security services are ready and willing to safeguard the interests of ALL Zimbabweans. The security services are voting for Chamisa to send the clear and unequivocal message that coup perpetrators must never be rewarded by giving them electoral legitimacy.

Furthermore, the security services are resolved to allow that the sovereign will of the people be exercised through the vote by exposing any and all attempts to steal the people’s vote. The security services are crowning all of this by committing to accept Chamisa’s electoral victory for him to become the President of Zimbabwe’s 2nd Republic.

We must never be mistaken into thinking that our security services are part of the clique of Mnangagwa and Chiwenga’s small band of treasonous criminals. We must we all give a thumbs up to progressive members in all of our security services as they vote for Chamisa.

Iwe Neni Tine Basa. Umsebenzi lo Umkhulu. Asante Sana