Zimbabwe presidency won through ballot box

Zimbabwe's mass and social media are awash with suggestions and arguments about who should or will succeed President Mugabe, and when.

The succession debate should actually be dealt with at two levels, the Zanu-PF party level, and the Government level. At party level, the matter is relevant only to Zanu-PF members in as much as their opinions and decisions can influence the choice of the individual who is that organisation's presidential preference.

The opinions of non-Zanu-PF members are irrelevant to the debate at that level.

At national level, the debate concerns virtually every Zimbabwean as it considers President Mugabe as a rival of several aspirants representing their own respective parties or, in some instances, their sole individual selves as is the case with independent presidential electoral candidates.

At the party level, there really should be no debate at all because the Zanu-PF constitution says that party's president shall be elected at its national congress. There is no room for impositions.

President Mugabe has stated that fact several, if not many times even before the controversial 2004 Tsholotsho Declaration. Democratically minded Zanu-PF members do not waste their precious time asking who will or should succeed President Mugabe because they know that to be a prerogative of their party's national congress and not that of intra– Zanu-PF factions.

It is undemocratic and absurd to suggest that President Mugabe should choose a successor as that would reduce Zanu-PF politics to the category of outdated traditional hereditary political institutions.

Remaining indelibly in our minds should be the historic fact that Zimbabwe was born from barrels of guns of revolutionaries many of whom sacrificed their lives on the field. They did that to achieve a free and independent Zimbabwe whose major right is One Person, One Vote.

That vote begins at village or cell level, and should be maintained at all the various rungs of the political structures of every party in this country.

The core aim of the Zimbabwean armed struggle was to win the right for the people to select or elect our leaders and or representatives at all socio-political levels under free and unfettered conditions.

There should be no question or room for those leaders or representatives to choose as individuals their own successors.

That would be negating the democratic aims and objectives of the liberation struggle as it would take away from the people that for which they sacrificed their most precious possession, their lives, to achieve.

Leaders or representatives should be elected on the basis of what they promise or undertake to do to make their constituents have a better socio-economic and cultural future than today's mode of existence.

We should bear in mind that human beings are generally more concerned about tomorrow than about today. They will elect those who promise them a future that will be more economically, socially, politically and culturally secure than today's life.

So, it is vital that leadership candidates be given a free platform to market themselves. We had an unfortunate experience in a neighbouring state about two decades ago when a sitting head-of-state hand-picked his successor.

That man, who got into the country's topmost office on the legendary prestige of his mentor, was sooner than later denounced as incompetent and was replaced as party leader by someone whose election was more by a qausi-violent mob than by a free and fair democratic process.

The architects of that undemocratic development were sooner than later disillusioned with their choice, and the leadership expelled them from the party they had so vigorously represented.

They now have their own political organisation and are vociferously and even more vigorously trying to remove from power not just their former pet candidate, but their former political organisation.

If the initial process had been left to the people in free and unfettered circumstances, the current unfortunate situation could most probably have been avoided.

In Zimbabwe, leadership positions should be attained through the ballot box and not through personal individual favouritism.

At national level, the voters of this country should be free to elect President Mugabe's successor. It would not only be unconstitutional but immoral, if not criminal, to make it physically or psychologically impossible for anyone not to stand for the national presidency if they so wish.

We should highlight the constitutional fact that Zimbabwe's national presidency is a democratically open and attainable position.

It is not like the hereditary institution of chiefs, or headmen in which succession is through birth.

Zimbabwe's national presidency is won through the ballot box from the lowest political party structure as stated above.

Those eyeing that position need to sell their respective party policies to the nation at large, and state in clear and emphatic terms how they intend to breathe some life into the country's comatose economy.

As it is, all, opposition political parties would like to replace Zanu-PF in government but they do not prioritise how they will do better than that party should they win the coming elections.

It is important for each party to explain how it will bring back to life such industrial organisations as the Hwange Colliery, the National Railways of Zimbabwe, Zisco, Air Zimbabwe and others that have virtually gone under because of mismanagement and illegal sanctions.

What is vital to most Zimbabweans today is not who will or should succeed President Mugabe, but how the majority of the people can afford to buy clothing and blankets, how to pay for their transport, and how to pay for regular meals.

Their priority is economic and not political survival.

Saul Gwakuba Ndlovu is a retired, Bulawayo-based journalist. He can be contacted on cell 0734 328 136 or through email. sgwakuba@gmail.com .