My Hearfelt Condolences to Zimbabweans

The people of Zimbabwe, I would like to extend my heartfelt condolences to you. Your liberation party is no more. Zanu-PF is no more.

The party lives in name only. The foundations upon which it was built, have been dug up and thrown into the river.

The Zanu-PF that I know, was built of a platform of selfless sacrifice. People, who knew the only guaranteed outcome of joining the liberation war was hardship, gave themselves and their entire lives to the cause of freedom in the name of the party.

I have never considered the vice president to be particularly brilliant or particularly suitable to lead the country. To me she is the least worst of bad choices. However noone in their right senses can deny that she made great personal sacrifices in the years leading to liberation.

In the current situation, I am like a goat asked to choose between the teeth of a hyena and those of a leopard. As far as I am concerned, the person leading the charge against the vice president is even less brilliant and less suitable. Moreover she has not made personal sacrifices to the extend the VP has done.

People like Didymus Mutasa and Sydney Sekeremayi have been synonymous with Zanu-PF since it started ruling the country. One of the few political meetings I ever attended was a rally at Mahusekwa growth point addressed by the Sekeramayi and the late Enerst Kadungure. One of them was wearing a light blue Safari suit and the other a cream Safari suit. That was in 1980 when I was in grade five at St Nicholas.

Zanu-PF has survived many things. It survived Ian Smith, it survived the MDC, but there will be no surviving Grace. I have never witnessed such toxic divisiveness in the history of any party. Long serving cadres of the party have been viciously and ruthlessly attacked, in a manner that seems to have taken them by surprise.

Like battery acid applied to fabric, she has eaten away a huge chunk of the party's unity. I will be surprised if people in Zanu-PF can return to fully trusting each other. In the run up to the supposedly elective congress of Zanu-PF, the party's constitution was torn to smithereens. So much that this whole charade should never ever be called an elective congress but a manipulative congress.

The Mugabe family effectively appointed themselves accuser, judge, jury and executioner for many in Zanu-PF. People have been suspended, expelled, threatened and even arrested simply because of untested allegations from the Mugabe family.

Some Zanu-PF stalwarts like Emmerson Mnangagwa may think they are gaining from this. I am not privy to what exactly is going on in Zanu-PF corridors but I have my doubts that the minister of defence is the ultimate beneficiary of the ongoing purges.

When a lion hunts, it selects its prey and separates it from the rest of the herd. I pointedly do not think Mnangagwa is the lion here. He just another member of a herd that is being carefully sectorized in preparation for the kill.

He might appear to be ascending now, but three years is eternity in politics. Especially when past and present manipulations have shown that there are no guarantees whatsoever to be had.

One thing that is clear is that Mugabe is no longer in full control. It was sad to see him being handed notes and ordered around live on TV. In his own words 'kana nekumba ndoo zvandinoitwa'. What more of a plea for rest do you want from him? At his age Mugabe should be left to rest in peace. He has marched his mile. Let others march on.

Of course crowds have been used unwisely to humiliate long standing Zanu-PF cadres. I do not know if politicians know that there is a difference in meaning between the words 'rent' and 'loyal'. Rented crowds are never loyal crowds.

When the Sunday Mail editor Edmund Kudzayi was arrested, accused of informing on Zanu-PF inner happenings, I pointed out that he was just a tuft of grass kicked up as bulls prepared for a fight.

The just ended wrongly named elective congress of Zanu-PF is by no means the end of the bullfight. One of the bulls may have been charged across the stomach but I have no doubt that it is going to turn around and charge back.

It is my well considered opinion that the next six months to one year are going to be crucial in determining which direction Zanu-PF as a party is going to go.

Whatever happens, the party will never ever be the same again. Broken trust can never be mended. It is like the shattered smithereens of safety glass.