Robert Mugabe is too late to the game

I want the Zimbabwean people to ask themselves a simple question: What is the objective of the youth interface rallies? If my memory serves me right, I heard these rallies were to drum up support for ZANU PF and to encourage youth to register to vote in the 2018 general elections. Why have the rallies now turned at Mnangagwa and the military?

 Mugabe is upset because he has failed to usurps control over all key state institutions: the army, police, civil service, state media, parliament, judiciary, central bank, and educational system. Each of these must serve his dictates. Mugabe however has suddenly realized that he has lost control of these key institutions. Those filling the position in these key institutions are not singing his praises and he wants them out. He wants to destroy these institutions by replacing professionals in these institutions with sycophancy.

Mugabe failed to grab control of the security forces - the military, police, and paramilitary and feels that for his survival, he must neutralize the security forces. What Mugabe is doing is coming up with a whole range of tactics to destroy or secure the army's loyalty. When he brings the spectra of a coup, he is putting SADCC on notice - they have zero tolerance to coup détentes. He is trying to press the army in the corner to buy himself time for systematic purges of the security forces; all personnel whose loyalty is questionable will be replaced. If the security forces resist these machinations, he will try to buy them out through ridiculous salary increases, cars, and other gifts the Saddam Hussein style.

What these rallies have shown us is that the security forces are not accountable to no one. While there has been a jellying between Mugabe and the security forces before, the officers' display of independence has brought out the Mugabe's paranoia - he does not trust them or anyone perceived to be favored by the army anymore - this has put Mnangagwa on a difficult position. Mugabe cannot trust his deputy anymore, he cannot trust the military, he is going for the broke.

A paranoid dictator is very dangerous but I feel it is too late. Unlike other countries, it seems too late for Mugabe to set up a special battalion or an elite presidential guard with troops drawn from his own tribe. This could help him create layers upon layers of security organs - to watch not only the populace but also each other.

What Mugabe and his wife must know is a soldier's uniform and gun has long been regarded as little more than a license to freedom. When all was well and sundry, Mugabe spend enormous sums on the military and security forces, consuming large chunks of Zimbabwe's budgets.

Ironically, all those expenditures on the military did not buy Mugabe an iota of security. Mugabe has been hoisted by his own petard and has been ousted by officers from his own security apparatus. The security commanders' silence is telling - they are not cowards, just principled; it is the noise from the Mugabes that must give everyone a hint.

Anyone who cared to listen to Grace Mugabe's Mashonaland West speech would not have any doubts that Mugabe has lost control of the country. By trying to humiliate Charamba, Grace told the county Mugabe has lost control of the media, a key institution that is a must have for the dictator's survival, as Joseph Stalin once remarked, "Control the media (cinema) and you control the minds of the people.

The dictator is frustrated because he can no longer keep up with the movements of his top officials or army commanders or military exercises, he needs this information for his survival. The media is exposing embarrassing lapses in judgment, competence, or governance - by his trusted sycophancy. We all heard it when Grace sprung to the defense of Kasukuwere at the youth interface rally. It is the media that has exposed his shallowness.

The dictator is not amused by the expose of graft, embezzlement, and corruption brought out by the media. In addition, Mugabe is not happy that the international community is now aware of ZANU PF shenanigans. Do you think it was a coincidence that Mugabe chastised Grace's youth in Lupane? does not want the world to know of the skulls of dissidents being crushed in his torture chambers.

Where are the youth programs that were supposed to be discussed at these interface rallies? The country cannot have a hope when our youth, are used like toilet tissue and cheer on garbage churning out of the first family.