Hope without heirs: Geza, the youth question, and Zimbabwe’s unfinished struggle for renewal

Comrade Blessed Runesu “Bombshell” Geza has died. In Blessed Geza, at least for a moment, the nation was electrified with renewed hope and excitement for what many saw as a chance for imminent change.

In terms of the bigger picture however, this tragic development raises the question: what does this sad development mean for Zimbabwe’s political and democracy trajectory?

As I watched the “Geza Revolution” unfold, I was struck, right from its onset, by the profound tragedy in watching Zimbabwe’s calls for political renewal being fronted by figures like Blessed Geza: men whose political moment had long passed, whose reputations are tethered to the very cycles of patronage and exhaustion that produced the crisis in the first place.

The tragedy is not simply about age or individual credibility. It is about what this spectacle reveals: a profound vacuum of agency, especially among Zimbabwe’s youth, in a country where the future is numerically and morally theirs.

When “washed out” political actors become the loudest voices for change, reform itself begins to look unserious. It loses credibility or legitimacy. It sends a dispiriting signal that Zimbabwe can only recycle its past, that even resistance must wear familiar, compromised faces.

This is fertile ground for cynicism and that is exactly the emotional terrain on which ZANU PF has thrived for decades. A ruling party that depends on fatigue and fear benefits when alternatives appear stale, incoherent, or captured by yesterday’s elites.

Yet the deeper indictment should not be of Geza or figures like him. No, not at all. It has been said: “You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain”.

This iconic line from The Dark Knight (2008) is befitting of Comrade Bombshell – he died trying where others were conspicuously absent from the dance floor. The greater indictment should rather be of the structural silencing and self-withdrawal of the country’s youth.

Zimbabwe’s young people are hyper-aware, digitally connected, and disproportionately burdened by economic collapse, joblessness, and democratic decay. Still, their presence in visible, organized, and sustained constitutional advocacy remains limited.

This absence is not apathy; it is the product of repression, survivalist pressures, and a long history of punished dissent.

Yet, as was once declared by Julius Malema during an August 6, 2025 public lecture : it is only the Zimbabwean youth who will determine the country’s trajectory.

Even more poignant are the words of Joshua Mqabuko Nkomo who once emphatically declared: The country will never die, the young people will save it. And so, without youth stepping forward as authors of their own political language, change risks being narrated by those with the least credentials to embody it.

All is not lost however. We should remain encouraged, motivated and inspired by the persistent, youth-led growing calls for defending the constitution and here Namatai Kwekweza instantly comes to mind.

We should remain galvanized by efforts to call out corruption and cognate practices including illicit financial flows such as efforts being advanced by Fadzayi Mahere, Jacob Ngarivhume, Hon Learnmore K Magorimbo and many others.

This is why the emergence of formations like the #DefendTheConstitution platform matter as advanced by stalwarts like Obert Masaraure. Especially now with looming threats of constitutional mutilation which we should never ever take at face value.

By grounding resistance in the rule of law rather than personalities, such movements offer a template for reclaiming political legitimacy.

Because let’s face it, hope, in Zimbabwe, has rarely arrived fully formed. It sprouts. And then spills over into nationwide resistance. Que the #Tajamuka #ThisFlag movements for example.

At a certain point though comrades, the thinkpieces that are being churned out by the dozen, the digital dialogue platforms that are being convened by the hour, and the emergence of movements for constitutional advocacy are all going to need to translate into real or tangible action that leads to inclusive and sustainable democratic outcomes.

Unfortunately the crisis in Zimbabwe has not only been a crisis of leadership, it has also, perhaps even more detrimentally so, been a crisis of fragmentation.

If movements for defending the constitution can successfully galvanize young Zimbabweans to be more vocal, more visible, and less deferential to recycled leadership, they may yet transform scattered frustration into collective force.

Signing out

Chiedza Mlingwa is a Research and Advocacy specialist who writes here in her personal capacity.