MRP raps ZANU‑PF over entrenched corruption, asserts calls for Mthwakazi self‑rule

The Mthwakazi Republic Party (MRP) has sharply criticised the ruling Zanu PF over what it describes as entrenched, systemic corruption, while reaffirming its stance that the party is structurally incapable of ethical governance and should no longer preside over the affairs of Mthwakazi.  

In a statement on Thursday, MRP leader Mqondisi Moyo said corruption under Zanu PF was not accidental or isolated, but "systemic, rewarded, and protected", adding that the ruling party had abandoned values such as human dignity, collective responsibility and moral restraint - principles MRP says lie at the heart of its political philosophy.  

Moyo said MRP's vision of self‑rule was rooted in ubuntu, where leadership is service, wealth is a communal trust, and power is exercised to protect human dignity rather than to exploit proximity to the state. He said Zanu PF no longer operated from any moral foundation.  

He argued that grand corruption in Zimbabwe was concentrated around the centres of state power, particularly in Mashonaland and Harare, where political authority, security elites, tenders and financial systems were tightly interwoven.  

According to Moyo, the environment has normalised tenderpreneurship, illicit deal‑making, monetisation of political proximity and public displays of unexplained wealth. He said the so‑called Zvigananda were not a geographical accident but the product of a governance culture that celebrates accumulation without accountability.

He said Mthwakazi communities were systematically excluded from this corrupt ecosystem - not because of moral superiority, but due to deliberate political and economic marginalisation. Ironically, he said, that exclusion preserved a social ethic that condemns theft, rejects arrogance and values communal responsibility.  

Moyo said corruption was not inherent in the people of Mthwakazi, but was imported through a centralised state system that rewards theft and punishes integrity. He said Mthwakazi society traditionally shamed theft, respected modest and accountable leadership, treated public resources as communal trust and understood authority as stewardship, not entitlement.  

He added that Zimbabwe's so‑called national unity had never been a shared moral project, but a forced political arrangement dominated by one governance culture that extracts and dictates.  

Moyo said Zanu PF had demonstrated that it could not reform itself, could not police its own corruption, could not accommodate diverse governance values and could not deliver ethical leadership. He said imposing this arrangement on Mthwakazi was "moral coercion", and that self‑determination was about safeguarding a different political ethic rooted in ubuntu, shared accountability and human dignity.  

He said Mthwakazi's demand for independence was not only legal or historical, but ethical. A society that rejects plunder, values dignity over dominance and refuses to celebrate corruption, he said, could not flourish under a state that rewards theft and criminalises conscience.  

Moyo said Zanu PF had shown that corruption was central to its survival, while MRP placed human dignity at the centre of its political identity. He said this was why Mthwakazi must govern itself, why sovereignty was not optional, and why the struggle for self‑rule was justified, peaceful and irreversible.  

He referenced recent remarks by Vice‑President Constantino Chiwenga, who said the liberation struggle was not waged so that a few could prosper while many lived in poverty. Moyo said Chiwenga's condemnation of Zvigananda - those flaunting wealth obtained through bribes, political proximity and manipulated state contracts - correctly identified the moral decay at the heart of Zimbabwe's political economy.  

However, he said such speeches arrived "decades too late and from the wrong platform". Zimbabwe, he argued, did not suffer from a lack of anti‑corruption rhetoric, but from a surplus of leaders who condemn corruption while presiding over it.  

He said corruption would continue because it was not a deviation from the system but its foundation.  

Moyo said MRP rejected the illusion that the system could reform itself through speeches, insisting that ethical governance must be structural, enforced and lived - grounded in ubuntu, restraint, shared accountability and respect for human dignity.  

He said Chiwenga may condemn plunder, but MRP rejects the plunder‑state itself. He concluded that this was why Mthwakazi must govern itself, why sovereignty was justified, and why the movement's position was uncompromising, peaceful and irreversible.