Zimbabwe at 32 – Tracing the Fading Democratic Value of National Leadership: Notes on 32 Years of Zimbabwe’s Independence

http://africanarguments.org/2012/07/13/zimbabwe-at-32-–-tracing-the-fading-democratic-value-of-national-leadership

Zimbabwe at 32 – Tracing the Fading Democratic Value of National Leadership: Notes on 32 Years of Zimbabwe’s Independence — by Tabani Moyo

July 13, 2012

The following originally appeared on the Zimbabwe Committee of the Peoples Charter blog on April 12, 2012. There are three papers in all, as the preface below states, to offer the views of a younger generation of Zimbabwean intellectuals on the meaning of Independence and democracy. This discussion is important for rethinking Zimbabwe.

Brief Preface:
The three essays cover three topics, national historical consciousness, reflections of young Zimbabweans on the meaning of independence and tracing the fading democratic value of leadership in Zimbabwe. The essays vary in length and are essentially individual reflections of Zimbabweans. The electronic publication of these essays has been facilitated by the Zimbabwe Committee of the Peoples Charter.
Kind regards,
Committee of the People’s Charter.

Zimbabwe at 32 – Tracing the Fading Democratic Value of National Leadership
By Tabani Moyo
In our lives as living organisms, we take time to introspect especially on the day one was born. The same is true four our country Zimbabwe on a day such as 18 April 2012. It is expected that we all fall back into the memory lane and try as much as is possible to rethink how our country has traveled and locating those areas we could have been done differently, if not better.

Though the day might be congested with slogans specifically from those who wish to sweep the grey areas of the passage of time under the carpet, but as a collective we need to outdo the drowning partisan portrayal of our national independence by the few. In the process we must see to it that we are as candid as we can in the introspective process. This is the reasoning behind the penning of this essay, nothing less nothing more, but a frank attempt at charting the nation’s progression and development.

There is a striking reality in Zimbabwe. It’s a nation that has known of one leader since independence. This we have nurtured either consciously or subconsciously. The generation represented by the ageing leadership has literally surrendered offering sound advice on the need for renewal and rather joined the wagon in praise singing acts rather than doing the honourable thing. This same generation and the ‘supreme leader’ have became a danger to the national thinking and the sooner the peoples of Zimbabwe realize and act on matter the better for national progression. In discussing this concept it is anchored on an understanding that the weaker the leadership, the weaker the state and nation becomes domestically, regionally and internationally.

This singular factor, tied up to other trickling tributaries has accounted to the weakening of the state as those that stampede to surround themselves around the supreme leader end up thinking on narrow personal and trivial party interests and entrenchments rather than serving the nation and its people therein.

This has in a way created a super elite group of primitive accumulation actors within the leadership. For the purposes of this article the leadership being a person, who often emerges as the head of the government, the head of the party and government in totality. The long and sort of it is that for the past 32 years we have modeled Zimbabwe around an individual who commands a clientele group of people at party level, through to the government and in a larger way controlling how the entire society as a nation is engineered.

This has collapsed organized systems in which a government, a country and the polity are supposed to operate. The 32 years of our independence have been a sliding of Zimbabwe from a liberated nation towards a clientele leadership who spend quite a sizable amount of time in crafting song, dance and other forms of art in praising an individual not a collective agenda for the nation. The collective national agenda espoused in the liberation struggle ethos are therefore subordinate to the leader, conveniently when it suits him/her for political capital, rather than pursuing the national agenda of developing and ensuring the nation state is competitive in the full measure of progressive and democratic development.

This, the prolific write Wole Soyinka noted in his book, You Must Set Forth at Dawn when be argued,
“This strange breed was a complete contrast to the nationalist stalwarts in whose hands we had imagined the country could be safely consigned while we went on a liberation march… we were bombarded by utterances that identified only flamboyant replacements of the old colonial order, not transformation agents, not even empathizing participants in a process of liberation.”

The views by the Nigerian scholar have become so profound to the interpretation of our state of leadership in Zimbabwe, 32 years after independence. I alluded earlier on that leadership in this case is an epitome of an individual, whose wishes, actions, thinking, sleeping or breathing becomes the non-progressive definition of a nation. 32 years on, the actions of an individual: wrong or right; brutal or in good faith; heavenly or evil, are still defining the axis in which the nation state orbits.
What has become apparent is that the current crop that emerged from the liberation front has lost the transformation agency spirit that guided the struggle. The ideals of the liberation struggles and that which is unfolding on the ground showcases a serious deficiency in the letter and spirit of transforming the country into a responsive state that satisfies the needs of its citizens.
In this regard, Zimbabwe, a nation of close to 14 million people faces the challenge of failing to secure a renewed effort in choosing the leader of the Republic who wields the psychological (mental) and physical (healthy and youthful) strata of leadership that can take over the liberation struggle agenda to that of transforming a nation state into an organic one that answers to the citizens’ yearnings. In our small and humble measurement, we are the SADC Island that fails to appreciate that there is life after figureheads at the helm of the state.

But we do protect this figurehead for personal reasons, given the fact that the bulk of these people who call themselves business people, can only claim that title because they have made our state a private enterprise. Without the protection of the state and the state providing tenders and other protective measures, this group of clientelism will not survive competing in the business world.
This in the long run is bleeding the state as it becomes an opportunity cost on the central government to fulfill its mandate of social service delivery. But the syndicates in this clientele group will keep on managing spin headlines to the international world, that the nation state has developed the most skilled minds in Africa, that the land is back into the hands of the majority and that we have one man one vote system in place.

Though it might be noted that the land question in Zimbabwe though controversial but is no longer reversible, it remains necessary to highlight to the powers that be that the average citizen who was allocated land in Mazowe, which is prime land in Mashonaland Central is now being evicted and being pushed back to marginal lands which they were previously. In their place it is the very same ‘business’ magnates who relay on the ‘captive state protectionism’ for their tender and other means of survival.

Our curriculum is now structured in a way that it is like a conveyor belt which fails itself in grading the final product from the raw ones, but still prides itself of producing the best of quantities as opposed to the much needed quality outcome. Our voting schedules and procedures are now resting in the hands of other nations. This is, as argued by Soyinka, ‘because our state which is a centre of resource allocation was captured by flamboyant replacements of the old colonial order, not transformation agents, not even empathizing participants in a process of liberation.’

Soyinka went on to note that, “We ask ourselves, were these men, who routinely conducted themselves with such gracelessness, the true representatives of a national mandate?” On this important day, this question is no longer pointed at the leaders from the liberation struggle but to those who started leading the defiance campaign to those who lost the liberation struggle mandate due to their deeds post independence. We therefore, collectively place the new government order under spotlight. How fast has been the process of sublimation? As in the old time classic,Animal Farm if we are to look at the pigs and the people, are we going to find marginal differences? This is what the Zimbabwean nation should answer.

We have been watching them from a distance and noted that the new entrants into the leadership roles of the government, through their deeds as contrary to their spoken word seem to send a clear message that their ascendancy to the national government is the monopoly of the privileged by the minority. As if to say that the messages on this occasion of 32 years of independence the language is that of say, stake your claims. The earlier you position yourselves, the bigger your slice of the national cake. It is necessary here to reassert my point that the definition of leadership has not changed.At 32 years of age, can the country stomach a leadership which scrambles for aggrandizement through cars, houses, allowances and paid for massages?

In this process of commemorating our national independence, we ought to make it candidly clear that the call for transformation agency has really become urgent. This is to say that we must never allow ourselves to be slaves of our own liberation efforts. It is paradoxical that at every time we differ in our course of direction, a ransom demand is made by those who have lost the libation struggle mandate, reminding the nation, the people and at times defining how blood can easily be shed. This belongs to savages, barbarians, sadists and other forms of “isms” that have no place in modern states configuration. To a larger extent it points to a failed understanding of the liberation struggle’s compass and its meaning thereof to the peoples of Zimbabwe, the region and the international world order.

We know very much that our place within the evolving organisms of new nations shall be redefined. This is more urgent given the fact that the current leadership does not have adequate knowledge of the net worthy value of its belongings nor the value of the country. I am yet to met a single leader with competent knowledge of the interpolation of the amount of minerals, the amounts of gas, the net worth of wild life and how best it can be cultivated into the development of our nation. With such poor leadership, the nation is in danger. Anyone with access to these unaccounted for resources can easily fund insurgence. It is more dangerous with a weak state like ours where the public and even senior officials are clueless of the net revenue emanating from the country’s trading with the world.
Irrespective of the limited knowledge of the country’s resources, we continue to structure deals which are nothing short of fraudulent behavior. One for example cannot competently explain why the government gave the Chinese ‘unlimited’ access to diamonds in the Chiyadzwa mine fields in exchange of the company building a military staff college located in Mazowe. Rationale thinking would point to a profitable decision of dualising our highway roads in the country in exchange to such access to the precious minerals. Addressing issues of the country wide pronounced starvation, health system, education and the failing industry.

At 32, I hope against the tide we must see to it that we cause change to happen. Changing of the configuration of the country is a function of a sound mindset leading it. As is, we have a long way to go, unless a new breed with new thinking surfaces.

Tabani Moyo can be contacted at rebeljournalist@yahoo.com

Zanu PF squanders chance for key leadership renewal

By Tabani Moyo

THERE is something telling about resolutions made by Zanu PF politburo and central committee to disband District Coordinating Committees (DCCs) last month. Before being dissolved, DCCs linked provincial structures with the district structures. The DCC polls were keenly contested within the party, as they were linked to the succession race.

Zanu PF has passed up several opportunities to fully address the issue of succession of party leader President Robert Mugabe. It is quite unfortunate that instead of addressing the core crisis, that of leadership renewal, the party has often resorted to sanctioning those who make their presidential ambitions public.

In disbanding the DCC structures, Mugabe has again put the lid on succession politics within the party and engendered an environment of fear, especially for Defence minister Emmerson Mnangagwa’s faction that was on the ascendancy after winning in most provinces against candidates aligned to rival, Vice-President Joice Mujuru. The message is thus clear: as long as Mugabe is alive, the succession debate should never be placed on Zanu PF agenda.

Contrary to assertions by the party that DCCs are not wanted as they were divisive as proven by the controversy that haunted the elections, Mugabe himself, who has been at the helm of the party for far too long, is also a major stumbling block.

This DCC furore leaves Zanu PF with a false sense of security in the short-term, but the bottom line is the party is failing, or rather reluctant to renew its leadership, and that is a recipe for disaster as Mugabe is aging.

With the disbandment of the DCCs, the party structures will become voiceless. Zanu PF has adopted a top-down command structure as opposed to the ideal situation of a bottom-up approach. Leadership-related questions will not be tolerated. A case in point is when Major-General Douglas Nyikayaramba said Retired Brigadier Ambrose Mutinhiri would succeed Mugabe at a memorial service for General Constantine Chiwenga’s brother.

Zanu PF political commissar Webster Shamu was quick to shoot down Nyikayaramba’s sentiments insisting that “the joke was not funny and should never be repeated”.
This is sad given that even Shamu himself may actually want someone “young” to lead the party. He expressed this view almost a decade ago, which saw him being pushed into political oblivion for a while.

The disbandment of DCCs confirms that Mugabe has become Zanu PF himself. This is well illustrated by the Tsholotsho debacle of 2004. Some senior Zanu PF politicians allegedly used the cover of a prize-giving ceremony at Dinyane School in Tsholotsho to discuss a succession plan that would have shaken up the presidium. Six of the party’s 10 provincial chairpersons were in favour of the succession plan, but were later suspended.

Instead of the party’s leadership holding a serious meeting on why its senior members were nicodemously discussing succession issues, Mugabe came out guns blazing. Within a few weeks of the Tsholotsho meeting, the six chairpersons had been suspended and some of the people involved were strongly warned for trying to stage a “palace coup”.

This structural decay was confirmed in the manner senior party members confided in the US government that they wanted the party leadership renewed, according to WikiLeaks. Many senior members of the party expressed reservations about Mugabe carrying on as leader, and also cited his advanced age and deteriorating health.

Again the party did not convene a serious meeting to deliberate the succession issue that had been confided in the US government — one of Zanu PF’s “enemies” following so-called targeted sanctions. Instead, Mugabe has used the WikiLeaks disclosures to strengthen his hand by creating an environment that is divisive, through ignoring this brazen act of “betrayal” as a way of creating uncertainty over the fate of the culprits.

In the first round of the 2008 presidential elections, the party structures showed Mugabe their vote of no confidence in his leadership, taking the polls as a window of opportunity to resolve the outstanding issue of succession. Zanu PF MPs and councillors campaigned for themselves and urged their supporters to make a “wise decision” over the presidency, hence the “bhora musango” (anyone but Mugabe) strategy when it came to the presidential poll. Hence, Mugabe lost the first round of voting to MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai.

Instead of serious introspection, Mugabe keeps reminding the party leadership in politburo and central committee meetings that they erred by not campaigning for him, as if to say without him the party is history.

No doubt the disbanding of the DCCs is yet another blunder by Zanu PF as far as the succession question is concerned as it targets symptoms rather than causes of the disease. What is clear, although no-one in Zanu PF will say it loudly or publicly, is that party members are certain that Mugabe’s reign is drawing to a close and sooner rather than later the succession issue would be resolved. By then it could be too late as Zanu PF will realise the folly of tying its survival to an individual and dissolving structures to serve that person.

This is an important lesson to other parties in the country: the sooner they start resolving issues of leadership renewal, the better for their political parties’ survival.

Tabani Moyo is a journalist based in Harare. He can be contacted at rebeljournalist@yahoo.com

A revolution that lost its course – Mugabe at 88

By Tabani Moyo

In the state owned weekly, The Sunday Mail of February 19 – 25, 2012 President Mugabe was asked, “We are told there are groups in ZANU PF positioning themselves to succeed you. Are you aware of such groups?” His answer, was little bit mind blowing to the level heads, “Those you cannot avoid. But, they are not serious. All the people (to say all is to be too absolute) support that I stand. There is no one who can stand and win at the moment… you have got to groom a candidate. You can’t just get someone and put them in the forefront. You must groom a successor.” 

This is the thinking of the man who has been at the helm of the country’s leadership for the past 32 years. His commends speaks of a lost revolutionary course. It seems as if the president has come to know of the need to groom a successor at the age of 88. To him it looks like if he is not in the equation or the matrix of political happenings the country will grind to an abrupt stop. 

In his 1979, Unity and Struggle, Amilcar Cabral is quoted saying that, “We must avoid the obsession of some comrades that everything is spoiled, everything is over if they should leave the posting where they are. Nobody is indispensible in this struggle; we are all needed but nobody is indispensible. If someone has to go and goes away and then the struggle is paralysed, it is because the struggle was worthless… this is without mentioning cases of other comrades who think when they are transferred, they are going to die, because they have already established all conditions for working in one spot and are called upon to go to another. What blindness! As if our land were just a little corner! This shows a lack of awareness of the real reason, the aim and characteristics of our struggle.”   

If our liberation struggle which Zanu PF played a pivotal role, was anchored on revolutionary thinking, the party itself was founded on revolutionising the nation and its founding, the country would not be stuck with a leader celebrating 88 years in office.  Our revolution was founded on the principles of dismantling the colonial yoke, giving the citizens that right to be human and making choices in a freed nation and above all defining our nationhood. This definition includes freely choosing its leadership, living in peace, human advancement in all faculties and a peace of mind.

As Cabral noted, the revolution lost its course as seen by how the citadels of the president are stepping on each others’ toes splashing close to a million dollars in celebrating one man’s birthday. If it was an independence celebration ceremony held across the country’s ten political provinces, we could have spared this critique. But no, it’s not a national event.

no one in Zanu is capable of winning?

The president posits an oxymoron statement that no one is capable of winning in his party. Though it is free knowledge that ZANU PF is no longer capable of winning anything worth competing for, he believes that he is God given. This is depicted at a level of brazenly coming out in the public saying that no one can offset competing offerings and secondly through deliberately stifling the open debate on succession, which entails that he wants to end his life in the public spheres of life.

His concubines cannot read the lines on the walls. They cannot smell the big rat in the house even when they are clearly aware of the fact that they made Robert Mugabe through posting him to the position he holds. That making of Mugabe was squarely rooted on the national ethos of creating a state that is responsive to the national needs. When he was posted, there was absolutely no thinking that one day we will dedicate our creative facilities through songs and dance to perfect his stay in power. 

At any given time we need to remind each other of the fact that the nation is convince that he is no longer a public good. He is no longer the best person to carry the national fleg at both domestic and international for a. This is given the fact that times have changed. That’s why he is angry at everyone from within his party as exposed by wikileaks, the nation for voting against his candidature in 2008, SADC for pushing for reforms and the AU for recognizing the new Lybian government. Times have changed comrade President!  

  

a true revolution never runs out of leaders

A clear case of well thought out revolutionary outfits like the African National Congress (ANC) is never deficient of leadership. On the contrary it builds stronger on the strength of leadership renewal. ZANU PF’s infections of leadership stagnancy have, just like any other lost course infected a domino effect in our lives. We see people refusing to leave office at trade unions, in churches, in civil society, in soccer and political parties. 

This is how deep the nation has lost direction as a cascading result of President Mugabe’s long term incumbency. We have transgressed. Our knowledge systems have become symbolic. If at any stage of our cultivation we cannot use our minds to change things and the status quo, that knowledge is helpless, it’s irrelevant and a complete worst of effort. 

To this we start hearing of other leaders convincing gatherings that, “leaders are God given”. That is dangerously coming from the fact that the ‘revolution’ in itself have become and evolution of mimicry tactics. We hope our nation will fumigate this cunning demon.

time out…

The president should know that its time out for him, he needs to rest so that we don’t worst any valuable time discussing and debating about age and producing cloths of an 88 year old. This should become increasingly clear to everyone. When we say time out, it means its his time that is out not for the nation.

His continued stay in office will subject the nation to unseen dangers. This is mainly because at that age, we are not sure what he will say at different for a, some of his statements will one of these days subject the nation to aggression from the global bullies. 

moving on

We need to remain alive to the fact that very soon Mugabe will be a fading memory. Zimbabwe will never fade off. Lets collectively make this point at every engagement of our lives. Our actions and thinking should be founded on the national well being rather than on building enigma personalities and threatening the country with war when we differ.

As the late good general Solomon Mujuru would say, “Those who threaten the people with war did not fight the war”. As you celebrate your 88^th birthday president Mugabe, you need to go and rest. The country believes you did your bit but as is the law of diminishing returns have taken over.

Tabani Moyo can be contacted at rebeljournalist@yahoo.com

BAZ a conduit for the ZANU PF election campaign

By Tabani Moyo

In the Sunday Mail of January 22 – 28, 2012, the Chairperson of the disputed Broadcasting Authority of Zimbabwe (BAZ), Dr Tafataona Mahoso was going in circles trying to redeem the bettered image of the illegally constituted board. He jumped from one point to another in a bid to mislead the nation that everything was done above board pertaining to the millennium charade of awarding licenses to ZANU PF sympathizers.

This article tries to highlight the major defects pertaining to the status of the BAZ and the subsequent awarding of three commercial licenses to AB Communication and the Zimbabwe Newspaper (ZIMPAPERS) by the same. The controversial move has been branded as a millennium charade in the media circles and fraud elsewhere.

In trying to dispel the ruse of impartiality and objectivity painted by Dr Tafataona Mahoso the article shall attempt to zoom on the following critical issues:

·         Which advert did the current board members responded to when they applied for the positions they are holding, that is if ever they applied?

·          Is it out of coincidence that only the allegedly ZANU PF aliened companies were granted the licenses to broadcast?

·         Is the current BAZ as is, ever going to discharge its duties without putting on its political spectacles and/or probably party regalia?

·         What is the way forward under such circumstances?

where was the advert flighted?

In the lengthy and tedious interview in the weekly state owed Sunday Mail, Dr. Mahoso painted a picture of normalcy on the status of the BAZ. This is sad because as he is fully aware, he never responded to any advert in the press for board members. The parliament of Zimbabwe advertised for commissioners’ posts for the Zimbabwe Media Commission (ZMC). Mahoso and others applied for such placements but failed, and dismally in that regard, in the public’s full glare. How the doctor and others of like mind, who by the way failed to make it into the ZMC ended up at the BAZ remains a millennium mystery.

As members of the public we are therefore calling on the Parliament of Zimbabwe to follow the laws of the land. Through the Standing Rules and Orders Committee (SROC), it should dissolve the current politicized outfit and advertise vacancies for board members in the press for prospective board members to apply. This is what it should have done in the first place.

the day ZANU PF awarded itself licenses.

 In early 2010, the ZANU PF spokesperson Rugare Gumbo, was quoted by the Zimbabwe Independent as saying both Tafataona Mahoso and Professor Jonathan Moyo were doing voluntary work for his party. This is sequentially confirmed by the contents of his long, meandering and some yester year century articles in the state media where he is always trying to spruce up the disintegrating party image.

The Manica Post (7 – 13 October 2011) carried a apt headline titled Journalist Supa Mandiwanzira joins politics. The headline was supported with a picture of Supa Mandiwanzira flanked by two senior Zanu PF members. The picture had the following caption: Zanu-PF national secretary for administration, Cde Didymus Mutasa (left), cde Moses Gutu (centre) present Nyanga South constituency aspirant Supa Mandiwanzira to party supporters during the constituency coordination meeting held at Sedze Business Centre last Saturday. If the need be for purposes of evidence and transparency I can still produce this newspaper cutting.

Dr Paul Chimedza, the chairperson of ZIMPAPERS is gunning for the Gutu South constituency on the ZANU PF ticket.

Due to the space constrains I will not hazard going into detail on the obvious party lineage of the likes of Dr Vimbai Chivaura,  Colonel Reuben Mqwayi (Rtd), Ms Charity Moyo and Brig-Gen Elasto Madzingira (Rtd) among others.

This smacks of a ZANU PF ploy to beef up its tools as the party prepares for elections sometime in 2013. It is upon us as the peoples of Zimbabwe, the region, continent and the international community to note that a BAZ chaired by a ZANU PF “voluntary worker” set and issued two licenses to two commercial radio stations whose heads are contesting in the forthcoming elections under the ZANU PF ticket. This can only be defined as fraud.

a void in broadcasting regulation.

Given the aforesaid situation, there is a void in our broadcasting sector for there is no legitimate and credible regulator to call for licenses for the people of Zimbabwe to start broadcasting. Therefore, there is no way under the current circumstances that the current board can claim to be registering ‘authentic broadcasters’ in essence what is happening is a clear situation were by ZANU PF is building a paper trail to the establishment of its manifesto.

Zimbabweans should refuse to be subjected to such a toy-story of political grandstanding rather than national development.

where do we go from here?

In conclusion we need sanity in the broadcasting industry through firstly ensuring that the current BAZ board needs to be dissolved by parliament; legal challenges and/or political parties coming back to their senses and disbanding the creature which is causing chaos in the industry.

There after the long term solution has to safeguard against the recurrence of such mischief through ensuring the establishment of an Independent Broadcasting Authority of Zimbabwe (IBAZ) that is done in sync with the regulation of telecommunications and ICTs. These two arms will be responsible of managing our frequency spectrum.

With such measures in place, as a nation we would move towards much progressive issues like digital migration rather than being stuck with Stone Age laws like the Broadcasting Services Act (BSA), Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act (AIPPA), Interception of Communications Act (ICA) and the Criminal law Codification and Reform Act (CODE) among others

Tabani Moyo can be reached at rebeljournalist@yahoo.com