Mutasa explains why he has never criticise Zanu PF lawlessness until now - it was law abiding until now!

When the Zanu PF factional war broke out some people welcomed people like Rugare Gumbo, Didymus Mutasa, Mai Mujuru and all the others purged from the party by Mugabe as fellow travellers in the fight for a democratic Zimbabwe. A cautious few were not so welcoming; they refused to see the purge as the Saul on the road to Damascus transforming moment that had finally opened the purged members' eyes to see the misery the regime was inflicting on the masses and gave them a voice to condemn with passion. Before welcoming these people they wanted Mutasa and others to explain why they had failed to see and speak against all these injustices, etc. all these last 34 years.

In an interview with a Daily News reporter, Didymus Mutasa has explained why he and others had said nothing to condemn Zanu PF until now; until the "criminal congress" of last year the Zanu PF was a "law abiding" party, he said.

"There is somebody who said you cannot mend a bicycle until it is broken. This is the principle I am taking. The bicycle is broken and so it needs mending. I could not have mended it before it was broken," Mutasa said.
 "I would have stopped it (Mugabe's amendment of the Zanu PF constitution, taking away congress members' power to elect the three most senior party posts after the first secretary and to give that power to the first secretary) then, and in fact the way they (Mugabe and Mnangagwa) took it forward was to avoid people like me. I put this issue on the agenda three times and three times it was evaded. That I can say now.

"I tried to see what was going to be in the final constitution and it was not discussed and I gathered from those who stayed that it was never discussed at all. It was simply presented to the central committee as they had gotten it and that was it.

"If you ask for copies of that constitution now, you do not get any. I have been asking for a copy and I have not received it".

The disregard of agreed procedure and then the deliberate withholding of information are well established Zanu PF modus operand. Of all people, Didymus Mutasa would know that the regime has failed to release the voters roll before the 2013 elections, for example, and has stubbornly refused to do so to this day. Everyone knows the elections were rigged and the voters roll was the smoking gun, hence the reason Mugabe refused to release the roll.

Whilst every freedom and justice loving person would join Mr Mutasa, in the name of zero tolerance to lawlessness, in condemning Mugabe's disregard of the Zanu PF party constitution; still one has to question why Mutasa has completely failed to see the innumerable times Zanu PF has committed the same lawlessness and worse for 34 years. Over 30 000 innocent Zimbabweans have lost their lives in politically motivated Zanu PF violence.
To only see the Zanu PF constitution violations and overlook all the other serious crimes by the regime is to fail to consider the victims of the later crimes as nothing more than ants whose sufferings and deaths are of no consequence. It is this contemptuous disregard of fellow human beings' freedoms, human rights and their very humanity that makes this Zanu PF tyranny and all those who are or were part of it so obnoxious; an insult to all its victims and to the nation at large.

The nation is in total economic meltdown; unemployment is 90% plus, 16% or 2 million people are already living in abject poverty, etc. The heart breaking economic hardships it has brought cannot be allowed to continue for another day. It is clear the regime has no clue what to do to revive the economy and yet the regime is determined to stay in power regardless. There only way to end this economic meltdown is for Zanu PF to step down so the country can finally have free, fair and credible elections.

In his infantile wisdom Mutasa said "only Mugabe can rescue the country from collapse". It has not occurred to Mutasa that the country would not need rescuing if Mugabe had not dragged it into this hell in the first place!

The cautious pragmatists were right to refuse welcoming Mutasa, Gumbo, Mujuru and all the other victims of the Zanu PF illegal purge as fellow travellers in the fight for democratic change. Mutasa, Gumbo and all the other former Zanu PF are corrupt, incompetent and tyrannical by nature; they have played their part in creating and sustaining this de facto one-party Zanu PF dictatorship and served it in very senior positions for decades because they believed in the system. Just because they have since fallen out of favour with the tyrant does not change their tyrannical nature.

Zimbabweans are fighting to end a political system that has turned those in power into hyenas who thrive on the misery and deaths of ordinary people. The decades in Zanu PF shows Mutasa and others are hyenas and we would be foolish to trust them not to betray us again and seek to re-establish the oppressive dictatorship again tomorrow.