If even the all-power rogue war veterans cannot hold Mugabe to account then who can?

The statement by rogue war veterans, madzakutsaku aMugabe (for those not familiar with the name dzakutsaku, this is derogative name given to Smith rogue black soldiers who would not fight the freedom fighters but terrorized unarmed civilians instead, sadly history is repeating itself with these soiling the good name of real committed liberation war freedom fighters), calling on President Mugabe to resign raises an very important political point - Who in Zimbabwe today can vote President Mugabe out office? These war veterans, dzakutsaku or not, clearly thought that had the power and authority to do so given their elevated position in the nation and so they did.

When President Mugabe realized that his popularity with the electorate was sinking fast in the late 1990s he instituted his noregimechange mantra whose sole purpose was to deny the masses their freedoms and basic human rights including the right to free, fair and credible elections. He corrupted the war veterans in the security sector and those who had been disbanded to abandon their liberation war commitment to freedom, liberty and human rights to become the principal enforcers of his tyrannical mantra. He turned respected liberation war heroes and heroines into the despised dzakutsaku.

President Mugabe knew the people would resist his authoritarian rule and so he granted carte blanche powers to the rogue war veterans to harass, beat, rape and even kill opposition politicians, their supporters and innocent Zimbabweans alike; beating the nation into submission. After decades of exercising this carte blanche power and successfully keeping President Mugabe and his cronies in power by denying the masses a meaningful vote the rogue war veterans claimed credit for themselves since those in power were not doing it.

The rogue war veterans made it clear early this year that they "were the stockholders of Zanu PF and Zimbabwe" and everyone else including the President himself was a "stakeholder who can come and go".

"The lizard that jumped from the high iroko tree to the ground said he would praise himself if no one else did," wrote Chinua Achebe in Things Fall Apart.

Our dzakutsaku lizards have effectively denied the masses the vote and felt it was now them who had the veto on who ruled the nation; when they reminded all that they were the stockholder of the party and the country, this was just the lizard praising himself! When they released the statement last week demanding that President Mugabe must resign, it was them exercising their veto!

If we put to one side for one moment the inherent injustice in President Mugabe's noregimechange mantra and the foolishness of madzakutsaku aMugabe one is left with the intriguing question; If the ordinary Zimbabweans have no vote and the rogue war veterans' veto can itself be vetoed then who is(are) the individual(s) with the superveto?

Everyone knows that President Mugabe has ruled the party and country with an iron fist, his word is law. His follow leaders in the party and in government have been reduced to cowing subservient minions, "vakadzi vaMugabe" as Margaret Dongo so aptly put it. So the one person wielding this super veto, the mother of all vetoes is President Mugabe.

"I watched ZBCtv (on Friday and learnt) that they made a statement, but I haven't read it. If they said the President must resign, then that is nonsensical. If they are true war veterans, the President is their CommanderinChief and they must be loyal and committed," commented VP Mnangagwa.

"I don't think those who say such things are loyal or genuine war veterans. They must be loyal."

Is this VP Mnangagwa being his usual self of deliberately coy and obtuse? This is a very serious matter and demands to be treated as such. If President Mugabe is not accountable to the ordinary people, to his subservient harem and now we learn that he is also not accountable to the rogue war veterans too. He is accountable to absolutely no one but himself this is clearly a very dangerous scenario no nation in its right mind can tolerate especially when we have henpecked president whose wife's insatiable greed for power and wealth knows no limit.

The prospect of President Mugabe appointing his wife to succeed him is real and I shudder to think what new depths of despair and depravity she will take us!

If VP Mnangagwa had any sense at all then he must surely see dangerous situation the country is in right now because President Mugabe has enjoyed absolute power all these donkey years. The situation is now so dangerous that there is no excuse whatsoever for allowing this situation to continue even for one more day; be it out of ignorance, selfish greed, political expedience, subservient nature gone nuts somukadzi mukuru waMugabe (as the most senior member in the Mugabe harem).

All those who thought that removing Mugabe now and replacing him with Mnangagwa was a strategic move must now review their position. If today Mnangagwa is asking loyalty to tramp over the urgent need to end this destructive culture of absolutism out of feigned loyalty to President Mugabe will he not do so again with ruthless resolve tomorrow to consolidate his own hold on power!

We must soldier on and demand the full implementation of the democratic reforms designed to end the Zanu PF dictatorship. The rogue war veterans' demand for President Mugabe to resign so they can appoint another tyrant is just a clever way of preserving the dictatorship by giving the illusion of change. It is not a halfway pitstop some people think; neither Mnangagwa nor his rogue war veterans backers will ever concede to give up their veto if they ever got into power.