The old order changeth, yielding place to new, And God fulfils Himself in many ways,Lest one good custom should corrupt the world…I could not help but think of these lines from Alfred Lord Tennyson’s poem Morte d’Arthur as I watched events unfolding in Zimbabwe on Tuesday.
It was a day not many Zimbabweans are likely to forget and a day very few of the old folks are likely to have imagined would happen in their lifetime.
Robert Mugabe resigned. Many people in the country and the diaspora were elated. They danced and revelled in the streets of Harare and Johannesburg. It was the end of an era and the dawn of a new one. People just could not restrain their excitement and jubilation.
Some Zimbabweans in South Africa were saying they were going back home.
Mugabe started as Prime Minister in 1980, taking over from Canaan Banana.
He later changed the constitution, doing away with the office of Prime Minister and replacing it with an executive president.
Ironically, the same Zanu-PF that dismissed him as president of the party on Sunday had nominated him as their candidate for next year’s election.
If he had stood he would, at 94, have set a new record as the oldest head of state. However, as fate would have it, the old codger grossly miscalculated his political infallibility by firing his deputy president the wily Emerson Mnangagwa two weeks ago.
There may be substance to the speculation that Grace Mugabe was behind Mnangagwa’s sacking, not being averse to taking the top job herself.
Grace, many of the Zanu-PF honchos seemed to believe, was leading the old man by the nose.
These dramatic events in Zimbabwe caused me to ponder on two points.
The first is made by Robert Greene in his book The 48 Laws of Power. Simply put: know who you’re dealing with and do not offend the wrong person.
The Mugabes seem to have lost sight of this in their dealings with Mnangagwa, the latter akin to the biblical figure Joab, King David’s right-hand man who did all the dirty work for the king.
Mnangagwa has done most of the dirty work Mugabe wanted done.
He is said to have been prominent in the Matabeleland massacres as minister of state security at the time, and in the silencing of many of Zimbabwe’s human rights activists.
He also endeared himself to the army and is close to the Zanu-PF veterans. He is smart, well-connected, extremely wealthy and knows Zanu-PF inside out.
How Mugabe managed to ostracise such a man defies logic. Such a man would surely be far too dangerous to keep at a distance. And sure enough, no sooner was he dismissed than the army staged their soft coup.
Mnangagwa, the previously sacked deputy vice-president, will be sworn in as new president today and hold office until elections are held around July 2018.
My second point relates to the power of a party in asserting its authority over an individual.
It is universally accepted that no individual is bigger than the party, even if that individual formed the party. The party will always outlive the individual.
Somehow Mugabe forget this too and behaved as if he was the party and the party’s fortunes were inextricably linked to his own. In kicking him out, Zanu-PF is reasserting its authority as an entity with a life of its own.
But it can hardly be said that the crisis Zanu-PF has found itself in is not self-inflicted. There is reason enough to believe the party led Mugabe into believing he was some sort of a deity.
And the hero-worshipping and personality cult that developed around him saw the country degenerate from a breadbasket after independence into one of the continent’s poorest country’s with its people scattered across the world as refugees.
It should not escape our attention that Zanu-PF now has its eyes on next year’s elections and the reality is, the crisis that has unfolded has been more of an internal factional fight than a national clamouring for democracy.
In adroitly off-loading excess baggage in the form of Mugabe and his cronies, an attempt is evidently being made by the Lacoste faction to paint a rosy picture of a party reborn.
This is tantamount to saying all the problems of Zimbabwe amounted to one man – Robert Mugabe – and the party is unblemished.
But in manoeuvring as shrewdly as it has I daresay Mnangagwa’s faction is showing that it has not been long in the business of politics for nothing.
The opposition – and to a certain extent the public – has been left in the dust by the “change agents” and the opposition now has to follow a programme initiated by the very party they are meant to oppose.
Morgan Tsvangirai, who was in South Africa for health reasons, suddenly recuperated and was on the next plane to Zimbabwe.
Clearly one should not underestimate the health benefits for some politicians of Mugabe’s imminent exit.
However, it’s a tad disappointing to note that except for calling for free and fair elections, Tsvangirai seems not to have a programme of what he wants to do. One would have expected more of the Movement for Democratic Change, that it at least be hard at work preparing for next year’s elections. If democracy is to flourish the MDC must snatch back the advantage from Zanu-PF and show the Zimbabwean public that the former gave rise to tyranny.
The MDC must also be able to convince the public to vote for them. It’s not so much about being different to Zanu- PF, but the MDC showing that it has the capacity to pull the country out of the economic doldrums, to reintroduce the rule of law and to root out corruption.
These are the issues that should be uppermost as the euphoria over Mugabe’s departure subsides.
Lest we forget, Zanu-PF birthed tyranny
It was a day not many Zimbabweans are likely to forget and a day very few of the old folks are likely to have imagined would happen in their lifetime.
Robert Mugabe resigned. Many people in the country and the diaspora were elated. They danced and revelled in the streets of Harare and Johannesburg. It was the end of an era and the dawn of a new one. People just could not restrain their excitement and jubilation.
Some Zimbabweans in South Africa were saying they were going back home.
Mugabe started as Prime Minister in 1980, taking over from Canaan Banana.
He later changed the constitution, doing away with the office of Prime Minister and replacing it with an executive president.
Ironically, the same Zanu-PF that dismissed him as president of the party on Sunday had nominated him as their candidate for next year’s election.
If he had stood he would, at 94, have set a new record as the oldest head of state. However, as fate would have it, the old codger grossly miscalculated his political infallibility by firing his deputy president the wily Emerson Mnangagwa two weeks ago.
There may be substance to the speculation that Grace Mugabe was behind Mnangagwa’s sacking, not being averse to taking the top job herself.
Grace, many of the Zanu-PF honchos seemed to believe, was leading the old man by the nose.
These dramatic events in Zimbabwe caused me to ponder on two points.
The first is made by Robert Greene in his book The 48 Laws of Power. Simply put: know who you’re dealing with and do not offend the wrong person.
The Mugabes seem to have lost sight of this in their dealings with Mnangagwa, the latter akin to the biblical figure Joab, King David’s right-hand man who did all the dirty work for the king.
Mnangagwa has done most of the dirty work Mugabe wanted done.
He is said to have been prominent in the Matabeleland massacres as minister of state security at the time, and in the silencing of many of Zimbabwe’s human rights activists.
He also endeared himself to the army and is close to the Zanu-PF veterans. He is smart, well-connected, extremely wealthy and knows Zanu-PF inside out.
How Mugabe managed to ostracise such a man defies logic. Such a man would surely be far too dangerous to keep at a distance. And sure enough, no sooner was he dismissed than the army staged their soft coup.
Mnangagwa, the previously sacked deputy vice-president, will be sworn in as new president today and hold office until elections are held around July 2018.
My second point relates to the power of a party in asserting its authority over an individual.
It is universally accepted that no individual is bigger than the party, even if that individual formed the party. The party will always outlive the individual.
Somehow Mugabe forget this too and behaved as if he was the party and the party’s fortunes were inextricably linked to his own. In kicking him out, Zanu-PF is reasserting its authority as an entity with a life of its own.
But it can hardly be said that the crisis Zanu-PF has found itself in is not self-inflicted. There is reason enough to believe the party led Mugabe into believing he was some sort of a deity.
And the hero-worshipping and personality cult that developed around him saw the country degenerate from a breadbasket after independence into one of the continent’s poorest country’s with its people scattered across the world as refugees.
It should not escape our attention that Zanu-PF now has its eyes on next year’s elections and the reality is, the crisis that has unfolded has been more of an internal factional fight than a national clamouring for democracy.
In adroitly off-loading excess baggage in the form of Mugabe and his cronies, an attempt is evidently being made by the Lacoste faction to paint a rosy picture of a party reborn.
This is tantamount to saying all the problems of Zimbabwe amounted to one man – Robert Mugabe – and the party is unblemished.
But in manoeuvring as shrewdly as it has I daresay Mnangagwa’s faction is showing that it has not been long in the business of politics for nothing.
The opposition – and to a certain extent the public – has been left in the dust by the “change agents” and the opposition now has to follow a programme initiated by the very party they are meant to oppose.
Morgan Tsvangirai, who was in South Africa for health reasons, suddenly recuperated and was on the next plane to Zimbabwe.
Clearly one should not underestimate the health benefits for some politicians of Mugabe’s imminent exit.
However, it’s a tad disappointing to note that except for calling for free and fair elections, Tsvangirai seems not to have a programme of what he wants to do. One would have expected more of the Movement for Democratic Change, that it at least be hard at work preparing for next year’s elections. If democracy is to flourish the MDC must snatch back the advantage from Zanu-PF and show the Zimbabwean public that the former gave rise to tyranny.
The MDC must also be able to convince the public to vote for them. It’s not so much about being different to Zanu- PF, but the MDC showing that it has the capacity to pull the country out of the economic doldrums, to reintroduce the rule of law and to root out corruption.
These are the issues that should be uppermost as the euphoria over Mugabe’s departure subsides.
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