Hopewell Chin’ono: Emmerson Mnangagwa’s failures are his and his alone!

By Hopewell Chin’ono

Fellow citizens, if you still think the same way you did 14 months ago after you have been presented with new facts, then you have lost 14 months of your precious time.

Many people including myself asked fellow compatriots to give President Emmerson Mnangagwa time and space after the November 2017 military coup that removed Robert Mugabe.

Unfortunately that is now being mischievously used in any and every argument to do with President Emmerson Mnangagwa to attack people who asked for him to be given that time and space, something that was commonsense at the time.

There was NO other logical route other than allowing President Mnangagwa time to prove or disprove himself because the constitution stated that a new President could only come from the ruling party, ZANUPF.

Delegitimizing him or not, the circumstances of his appointment would have remained the same, so it made sense to have asked compatriots to give him time and all the support that he needed considering that thousands of citizen marched in favor of removing Mugabe knowing too well what was to come.

I am glad that I did everything possible as a citizen to support his Presidency after Mugabe’s removal, the same way that the late Morgan Tsvangirai and his team supported him too.

I am also happy that I NEVER delegitimized his Presidency at the time, because whenever I write and publish my views today, they are not perceived to be driven by pure partisan scorn because as a citizen and patriot, I did everything possible to help him and his government succeed.

The fact that he is failing has nothing to do with my views in November of 2017, it is his own personal failure and that of the men and women around him and as such, I see it as an act of nuisance and irrationality to try and equate my call in 2017 to give him space and support to his unfortunate and tragic failures today.

I do not belong to any political party and I have never done so in the past, so it is easier for me to make decisions based on the facts put before me as opposed to someone who supported ZANUPF or MDC in 2017 or before and after.

It made sense to an MDC supporter to want to keep on fighting against a new ZANUPF president because their cause is partisan, but to expect me to dance to that tune shows a tragic failure in understanding the relatedness of issues in both politics and private life.

My cause is purely hinged on patriotism and nothing else, that is why when I was offered to be on the ZBC board in October by the minister and her permanent secretary, I turned down the offer because I am not looking for a job, I just want to see my country succeed regardless of who is in power.

So nothing has changed between 2017 and today in as far as my desires for a better Zimbabwe are concerned.

I wanted social progress and economic growth then, and I still want the same things today for my country and its citizens.

The fact that the President and his government are failingto deliver on their lofty promises should not be my responsibility because I never advised anybody to vote for him, Nelson Chamisa or any of the other presidential candidates.

It is also irrational to equate criticism of Nelson Chamisa’s campaign to supporting Mnangagwa, as it is irrational to equate criticizing the President’s failures today to supporting Nelson Chamisa.

Those who are emotionally tied to political parties should not therefore expect everyone to support their partisan causes regardless of the rationality of such.

In Britain they have the floating voter who decides whether a political party wins an election or not, their decision is decided on rationality and pragmatic thinking and not emotional ties to a political party.

I see myself as such a voter, I refuse to be like the incorrigible rural voter who will vote for ZANUPF regardless of its failures or the urban voter who will vote for a failing and under qualified councilor on the basis of political party loyalty and ignore better independent candidates on the ballot paper.

I have merely expressed my views based on what I know to be true and what has been put before me, so I hope that we can all stop this “YOU SAID” this and such related nonsense.

I am not a party cadre, I have never been one and never will be one. I am a citizen and patriot and it ends there!

We should argue issues and not personalities, that is just not me and you will never see me getting angry on behalf of a politician.

It is your right to hold on to your partisan views regardless of opposing rational facts available before you, but do not expect everyone to be like that in pursuit of narrow and parochial party interests.

Emmerson Mnangagwa’s failure is his and his alone. The fact that he had abundant good will on a silver platter and trampled on it cannot be turned and used against those who wished him well and extended that goodwill.

The fact that he failed to use such good will for the broader good of the country is his problem and not that of those of us who gave him the goodwill that he has spectacularly bled away.

We can’t be held responsible for the actions of a president and his disorganized government simply because we wished him well.

Unless you have a personal agenda, you should be able to see rationality in what I am saying.

Decisions are made on the basis of what you know at that time, those who are trying to be clever and a half by invoking a better sense of judgment based on 20/20 hindsight are not necessarily being honest.

Many among us are driven by partisan interests, that is why it was easier for some of us to work with Robert Mugabe’s government as his subordinates, but suddenly unpalatable to wish a country’s President’s goodwill and ask the nation to give him space and all the support that he needed at the time.

A President’s success benefits all of us and his failure affects all of us as well.

So what was wrong in wishing Emmerson Mnangagwa success in November of 2017?

What other constitutional logical option was available to us as citizens after the coup in November 2017?

It is therefore a waste of time to spend days on end attacking other compatriots for their reading of issues at any given time, instead of focusing on the substance of what is up against us as a country, and not being consumed by petty desires to insult others, a pursuit with no valuable outcome.

Hopewell Chin’ono is an award winning Zimbabwean international Journalist and Documentary Filmmaker. He is a Harvard University Nieman Fellow and a CNN African Journalist of the year.

He is also a Fellow at the University of Oxford’s Africa Leadership Institute.

Hopewell has a new documentary film looking at mental illness in Zimbabwe called State of Mind, which was launched to critical acclaim.

It was recently nominated for a big award at the Festival International du Film Pan-Africain de Cannes in France. You can watch the documentary trailer below.