Why Zanu-pf will rule for the next 50 years

By Bernard Bwoni

A solidly empowered and economically liberated majority has been emerging at the same time as opposition politics in Zimbabwe has been relegated to bedroom buffoonery and diasporan duplicity. The regrettable reality is that Zimbabwe lacks real opposition and a credible alternative to the ruling Zanu-Pf. The country is endowed with oppositional mediocrity with absent ideological foundations, a vacant vision and values and mere gimmicks of substance-free empty proclamations of democracy, rule of law and civil liberties. Some opportunistic opposition options have sprouted internally and externally in the diaspora on the frail foundations of the ‘Mugabe-must-go’ money-spinning ‘ideology’ with very little in terms of substance and structures. As the actuality of ownership and economic empowerment becomes concrete and absolute and as the opposition continue to descend into cosmic and comic concussion the reality of Zanu-Pf dominating Zimbabwean politics for the next fifty years becomes less and less abstract.

The country deserves a genuine opposition built on real values, deep-rooted, home-grown and home-focused cornerstones. Any citizen would want a solid opposition to Zanu-Pf, that option available to switch when the ruling party fails to deliver but still remain assured that the country’s vision and direction remains home-orientated and not paraded on the neo-colonial commercial hub to the highest bidder. An opposition that can define and direct the country’s vision forwards as opposed to unworldly and oblivious preoccupations with aiding and abetting the reinstatement of a neo-colonial structure which seeks to erode the authentic African vision and replace it with exploitation-engineered craftiness camouflaged as counterfeit claims to African development. A ‘Mugabe-must-go-obsessed’ opposition is structurally and strategically flawed and an authentic opposition must go beyond the ideologically-defunct money-focused schemes tendered as alternatives to the ruling party. Surely if a mere substance-devoid outcry for the removal of President Mugabe is all it takes to tread the corridors of Zimbabwean power then State House would be heaving with Presidents of all colours and creeds right now.

The fact of the matter is that Zimbabwe is not going to have that sort of opposition for the next half a century. It takes time and commitment to crotchet the principles, the vision and values that Zanu-pf has and is still patching and I am afraid the opposition in Zimbabwe is still fifty years away from the ruling party position.

Zanu-Pf has roots and we are talking about taproot foundations entangled in and around with the walls of the Great Zimbabwe and beyond. Zanu-pf breathes the same sacred air as the ancestors who laid the original underpinning substructures and values that define this country. The party embodies and defines the inception of Zimbabwe and its vision is enshrined in its ideology, the country-defining vision which anchors, binds and shapes the nation as a whole. There is a bona fide wholesomeness, a profound and tangible trajectory to pass on for present and future national augmentation. Now that is the Zanu-Pf picture and reality merged into one. That being said, the party is not entirely without flaws, some have snoozed on the job as evidenced by the recent revelations and emerging sleaze and salary scandals. Yes action is being taken but this is where my point about real opposition comes in. If Zanu-pf fails to deliver there should be available that option of switching, temporarily or permanently but still remain assured that national direction remains unaltered, the defining foundations of this country remain entrenched and the nucleus of this country’s vision is shielded and secured with fortified fidelity.

If you look around for that sort of opposition what you are confronted with is a party with a man with more bedroom options than IKEA, and on the other side is a diaspora outfit with dollar-bill-inscribed pupils dilated with overzealous obviousness. Zimbabwean opposition politics is in an epistemological and ideological penumbra, exist­ing but non-existent, bottom line is wholly unconvincing; bend over backwards and forwards to the whims of the neo-colonial command and confines. Professor Welshman Ncube is intelligent at least and that we give him but again same fate. Madhuku is yet another fine grey matter disabled by the futile quest for the ‘Mugabe-must-go’ easy-pick dollars. It takes more than a Stella Artois-inspired oppositional formation moment somewhere in the Scottish Highlands to define the course of a nation.

Elton Mangoma was recently chastised and threatened for clamouring for that reinvention and renewal and my point exactly. As the Zanu-pf political patchwork gathers pace, the oppositional structures are unravelling with cataclysmic inevitability. There is absolutely nothing to dislodge Zanu-pf from helm for the next half century.

Bernard Bwoni can be contacted on bernardbwn@aol.com/  bernardbwoni.blogspot.com