Opinion / Columnist
Beyond November 2017 coup, what is best for Zimbabwe: The army, president Mnangagwa or the people of Zimbabwe?
18 Dec 2017 at 06:37hrs | Views
It is naturally a divisive question to show the integral component of what makes up nation building. In a nation and at any rate after the coup, the way forward is crucial to pull together until when reaching at the other stage. It is not the wishes of being in power that matters but the wishes of being and able to do the wishes of the people. Even dictators too do at one point wish they deliver to people expectations. What fails all governments is failure to be transparency and wanting to assume the roles of the people-Electorate than being the mandated administrators for a time pending renewal of mandate at each election period in the life of governments.
Is President Mnangagwa a bad man? Take a context and all of us become badly and/or are a mixture often hard to tell whether good or bad. Can Emmerson Mnangagwa management deliver services to mutual satisfaction of all citizens? No one can tell even though his statements so far and policy pursuits are very progressively geared and could result in good services to the people. His men and women entourage so far to the cabinet are no doubt the same old cabbage that honestly weighed Mugabe down till he became so puffed up he thought he owned Zimbabwe personally. From that context, even the veterans are as shallow and unreliable as they come and go. They are humane therefore as amenable and played to the gallery of Mr. Mugabe until when their own personal safety was at stake.
Sad, but reality has it that anyone that shows in politics in Africa, unless exceptionally geared on carrying a revolution, succumbs to corruption and bribery therefore limiting their concern for the common man. A revolution need not entail blood shading and massive torture of the innocent to cow them down and silence them. To the contrary, it entails education for cooperation and support of national interest projects that come from the consensus of working together than being at each other all the time.
On 13 November 2017 soldiers took control of the country? Where are they now and how different is there presents compared to time of Mugabe when they were deployed to help maintain order on streets etc.? Why are there videos of people being assaulted by soldiers as though in preparation of elections rigging when politicians are busy assuring the country of free and fair elections? Is Zimbabwe population back to the fear hatchings of increased abuse by the same soldiers and what is the cause? Who sat and watched supportably while Mr. Mugabe and his surrogates rigged elections for the last thirty years? W ere the soldiers interested in showing the people their power or seriously wanted to redeem their future in Zanu particularly those in the top echelon?
So far soldiers have shown that they think parochially with vested interests foremost than focusing at redeeming the ordinary Zimbabweans. They refused saluting civilians before because they preferred leadership coming from those who fought in the armed struggle. Why is President Mnangagwa not commanding the soldiers to go back into the barracks by now? Who is in charge of the defense forces really? These and many other questions need answers in the after coup Zimbabwe governance. There are no answers to these questions and this is what happened prior to Mr. Mugabe becoming an Occult.
If we were to lay down priorities it would be nice for us to say in a rule of law state the constitution is supreme and the pillars of democracy are the Executive Presidency, Parliament and the Judiciary. Defense forces come under the Executive Presidency but are citizens sure that Commander C Chiwenga is subservient to President Mnangagwa? What has he learnt from bypassing authority and can he do it again? Circumstances do differ though. He has to have good grounds on which he can bypass authority again. So far, unless soldiers humble themselves to acknowledge electorate as the source of power, many of the intellectuals will watch the soldiers with disdain and suspicion given their announcements in November 2017 for an intervention through a coup. They did not call for a transitional government to restore political plain level but specifically organized Zanu internal political morass.
The way forward is that the soldiers have to distance themselves from politics. Even though the bulk of the army took part in the liberation struggle, if they keep pushing the button of loyalty to the liberation values than to the constitution they force masses to think of how they were mistreated by combatants during the liberation processing days. Not all was roses, and like in any war, some events are uglier than others and people have a right to recall and lament particularly when there is fear of the repetition of torture, brutality purely to keep people subservient. The reason why coups are not normally done by generals is simply because Generals become part of the rot while the ground army crouches.
No doubt the tipping point will be how honesty elections will be open to supervision beginning with an open and transparent registration of citizens home and abroad in Zimbabwe 2018 elections. Why would Mudede, the government registrar, stay in civil service when all civil servant over sixty-five have retired? Mr. Mudede is over seventy. All these anomalies open gaps in treatment of civil servants to reveal a weakness than strengths in to what President Mnangagwa is able to accomplish.
Therefore is it essential to lobby the world for continued sanctions on the country and government or on individuals by the western nations? Have sanctions been useful at all to the general management of the systems in Zimbabwe or did they give a pretext to corruption blowing out of proportion with increased inefficiency in civil service work and the political accountability in institutions carrying governance in government? An honest evaluation may show that sanctions are a smoke screen. If you kill the snake how can anyone say that he needs snake feed still. The snake is elections rigging, supported by the military might and brutality of all, the soldiers, the police and the state machinery: The Central Intelligence Organization (CIO), the Police and the now disbanded so called militia (green bombers). The snake is the fake registration of voters which was then inflated that none could beat the system put in place by Zanu. The snake is lack of transparency in voter-registrations since the public cannot inspect the same before. When these are done well and opposition organized properly, either there is no majority government or there is necessity for coalition government. This will call for new police orientation, new CIO and army and air force services.
If reforms to an existing constitution are not put to effect then President Mnangagwa is just an appendage of Mr. Mugabe's government and either danger is soon looming or mediocre governance ensues.
People debate will help launch a new forum of ideas and therefore new thinking. It is difficult seeing that soldiers are slowly slipping into power abuse by beating citizens for whatever reason without recourse to courts systems. There appears to be something endemically wrong that reduces Zanu culture into threatening people with instant justice measures like in liberation days. The country has seen enough of rogue behavior and cannot develop from brutish acts promoted by powers that be. People have to talk and reveal acts of detraction from safeguards to the constitution.
Is President Mnangagwa a bad man? Take a context and all of us become badly and/or are a mixture often hard to tell whether good or bad. Can Emmerson Mnangagwa management deliver services to mutual satisfaction of all citizens? No one can tell even though his statements so far and policy pursuits are very progressively geared and could result in good services to the people. His men and women entourage so far to the cabinet are no doubt the same old cabbage that honestly weighed Mugabe down till he became so puffed up he thought he owned Zimbabwe personally. From that context, even the veterans are as shallow and unreliable as they come and go. They are humane therefore as amenable and played to the gallery of Mr. Mugabe until when their own personal safety was at stake.
Sad, but reality has it that anyone that shows in politics in Africa, unless exceptionally geared on carrying a revolution, succumbs to corruption and bribery therefore limiting their concern for the common man. A revolution need not entail blood shading and massive torture of the innocent to cow them down and silence them. To the contrary, it entails education for cooperation and support of national interest projects that come from the consensus of working together than being at each other all the time.
On 13 November 2017 soldiers took control of the country? Where are they now and how different is there presents compared to time of Mugabe when they were deployed to help maintain order on streets etc.? Why are there videos of people being assaulted by soldiers as though in preparation of elections rigging when politicians are busy assuring the country of free and fair elections? Is Zimbabwe population back to the fear hatchings of increased abuse by the same soldiers and what is the cause? Who sat and watched supportably while Mr. Mugabe and his surrogates rigged elections for the last thirty years? W ere the soldiers interested in showing the people their power or seriously wanted to redeem their future in Zanu particularly those in the top echelon?
So far soldiers have shown that they think parochially with vested interests foremost than focusing at redeeming the ordinary Zimbabweans. They refused saluting civilians before because they preferred leadership coming from those who fought in the armed struggle. Why is President Mnangagwa not commanding the soldiers to go back into the barracks by now? Who is in charge of the defense forces really? These and many other questions need answers in the after coup Zimbabwe governance. There are no answers to these questions and this is what happened prior to Mr. Mugabe becoming an Occult.
If we were to lay down priorities it would be nice for us to say in a rule of law state the constitution is supreme and the pillars of democracy are the Executive Presidency, Parliament and the Judiciary. Defense forces come under the Executive Presidency but are citizens sure that Commander C Chiwenga is subservient to President Mnangagwa? What has he learnt from bypassing authority and can he do it again? Circumstances do differ though. He has to have good grounds on which he can bypass authority again. So far, unless soldiers humble themselves to acknowledge electorate as the source of power, many of the intellectuals will watch the soldiers with disdain and suspicion given their announcements in November 2017 for an intervention through a coup. They did not call for a transitional government to restore political plain level but specifically organized Zanu internal political morass.
The way forward is that the soldiers have to distance themselves from politics. Even though the bulk of the army took part in the liberation struggle, if they keep pushing the button of loyalty to the liberation values than to the constitution they force masses to think of how they were mistreated by combatants during the liberation processing days. Not all was roses, and like in any war, some events are uglier than others and people have a right to recall and lament particularly when there is fear of the repetition of torture, brutality purely to keep people subservient. The reason why coups are not normally done by generals is simply because Generals become part of the rot while the ground army crouches.
No doubt the tipping point will be how honesty elections will be open to supervision beginning with an open and transparent registration of citizens home and abroad in Zimbabwe 2018 elections. Why would Mudede, the government registrar, stay in civil service when all civil servant over sixty-five have retired? Mr. Mudede is over seventy. All these anomalies open gaps in treatment of civil servants to reveal a weakness than strengths in to what President Mnangagwa is able to accomplish.
Therefore is it essential to lobby the world for continued sanctions on the country and government or on individuals by the western nations? Have sanctions been useful at all to the general management of the systems in Zimbabwe or did they give a pretext to corruption blowing out of proportion with increased inefficiency in civil service work and the political accountability in institutions carrying governance in government? An honest evaluation may show that sanctions are a smoke screen. If you kill the snake how can anyone say that he needs snake feed still. The snake is elections rigging, supported by the military might and brutality of all, the soldiers, the police and the state machinery: The Central Intelligence Organization (CIO), the Police and the now disbanded so called militia (green bombers). The snake is the fake registration of voters which was then inflated that none could beat the system put in place by Zanu. The snake is lack of transparency in voter-registrations since the public cannot inspect the same before. When these are done well and opposition organized properly, either there is no majority government or there is necessity for coalition government. This will call for new police orientation, new CIO and army and air force services.
If reforms to an existing constitution are not put to effect then President Mnangagwa is just an appendage of Mr. Mugabe's government and either danger is soon looming or mediocre governance ensues.
People debate will help launch a new forum of ideas and therefore new thinking. It is difficult seeing that soldiers are slowly slipping into power abuse by beating citizens for whatever reason without recourse to courts systems. There appears to be something endemically wrong that reduces Zanu culture into threatening people with instant justice measures like in liberation days. The country has seen enough of rogue behavior and cannot develop from brutish acts promoted by powers that be. People have to talk and reveal acts of detraction from safeguards to the constitution.
Source - Andrew M Manyevere
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