The story of the Gamatox cabal

Forget about the bad guys for a while.

I mean forget about Harry Thomas Jnr and his last ditch effort to curry favour with Donald J Trump by condemning the arrest of the church-less pastor called Evan Mawarire.

Forget about Morgan Tsvangirai for a while and his sorry party, which is competing to be the longest serving opposition party in the world that will never form a government.

Just forget about these low-lives for a while.

Last week belonged to the nation's favourite female political delinquent, Joice Runaida Mujuru, that chubby former Vice-President who defied all odds by forming a fly-by-night, household-headed party called Zimbabwe People First.

She reminds us of those fairy tale female villains who are fierce, dark, cynical and smug.

Those that quickly come to mind are that witch in Hansel and Gretel, and that stepmother in Cinderella, or that witch in Rapunzel.

While we all know that good will triumph in the end, half the fun of any story comes from the casting of spells, hoarding of treasure, and attempts to rule world: like Joice tried to do.

Without a doubt, the whole ZimPF fiasco resembles the fairy tale of Rumpelstiltskin.

Certainly, the three male characters in the Rumpelstiltskin story — the miller, the king, and Rumpelstiltskin himself — are too cocky for their own good.

The miller, Rugare Gumbo, is so proud of his daughter, Joice, that he exaggerates her abilities; the king, Didymus Mutasa, thinks he can command anyone to perform his oddest whim; and the little goblin, Ray Kaukonde, scuppers his own scheme by turning straw into gold.

The beauty of it is that the Rumpelstiltskin story of the Gamatox cabal took a rather more interesting conclusion than the original one.

After the daughter becomes queen, she politically executes the miller and the king while the little goblin scurries for cover as he lets the earth swallow him so that he has nothing to do with politics, straw or gold.

Nevertheless, left exposed, the queen has no straws to clutch onto anymore, no subjects to command except her children and consequently sinks into political oblivion.

Moreover, Zimbabwe became a better place and its citizens lived happily ever after!

Yes, now we all know it was a Pyrrhic victory when Joice formed ZimPF. If anyone was of the illusion that Joice could take them to the Promised Land then they must be dying a slow death having taken a lethal sip from the Gamatox poisoned goblet.

Shutting out the "elders" who claimed paternity of this child meant the child would not survive the pregnancy. Furthermore, suspicions by the mother that a Rumpelstiltskin wanted to usurp the child when it would be born also reduced the foetus' chances of survival.

When all is said and done, ZimPF will be remembered as a Humpty Dumpty party that sat on a very high political wall and it had a very great fall and absolutely no-one could put the party back together again.

I recall warning, sometime ago, that the day will come when Gamatox would choke on its own poison. I was derided each time I poured scorn on the contemptuous cortège which comprised the hollow-head called Joice Mujuru, the hoodlum Didymus Noel Edwin Mutasa and the huffing and puffing Rugare Eleck Ngidi Gumbo.

Having been dishonourably discharged from the revolutionary party, the Gamatox cabal was free to make their ulterior intentions known although the brutal reality was that, it was everywhere in chains. They entangled themselves in a risky web of underrating the pedigree of the revolutionary party. Consequently, the Bikita by-election was a rude wake up call for them and after Bikita, everything in ZimPF inevitably went sideways.

Gamatox declared war on the revolutionary party in the battle of Bikita. They went to war when victory is glaringly unattainable.

They fought a perceived enemy without adequate preparation or with hasty disregard as to the opponent's strength.

The result was as expected.

They were soundly and thoroughly beaten as they retreated with their long tails between their legs and blood, sweat and tears in their eyes.

The pathetic illusion that they could form an opposition party that could contest against Zanu-PF quickly became a miasma that only cleared with disillusionment that made them find an uneasy coalition with MDC-T quite tempting.

Despite their formlessness, they threw all subtlety to the whirlwind and the decision to either form a coalition with MDC-T or go it alone finally became their Achilles' heel, which was compounded by the poisoned chalice they had all drank from.

Surely, with the rapid and momentous demise of ZimPF who can blame Zanu-PF for celebrating in advance a landslide victory in next year's elections?

We have always known that something is rotten in Zimbabwe's opposition politics. Something actually stinks to high heavens. And if no-one can lead an opposition party, do they think the electorate is so gullible to let them lead the nation?

It is a shame that as opposition political parties decompose, they frantically attempt to smear their whole decay on Zanu-PF.

For all intents and purposes, the demise of Gamatox was good riddance to bad rubbish. The Gamatox cabal was a dangerous cabal.

They tried to create a dangerous idea that there was a Zanu PF split, a real Zanu PF and not-so-real Zanu-PF. What they were essentially hoping for was to obtain a semblance of legitimacy that would emanate from the resultant confusion.

However, what they did not realise was that in the midst of all the chaos they created, they ceased to exist.

Just as Rumpelstiltskin committed suicide by tearing his limbs apart, so has the political suicide of Gamatox been likewise.

Dubulaizitha!