Mugabe, the real disgrace happened when you lost in 2008

ONE cannot help but feel pity for the aged former Zimbabwean president, Robert Mugabe. It would appear those who deceptively spoke glowingly about him prior to his demise last year are still speaking, but very much to his further detriment.

Mugabe is clearly lost in his own make-believe world. Hearing Mugabe speak at a hastily arranged press conference at his blue roof residence last week, it became apparent that the very fact of electing Mugabe to the highest office in 1980 was a wrong turn for the country; a mistake of elephantine magnitude.

The man simply has a nauseating sense of entitlement to rule this country. The late Eddison Zvobgo, in 2000, made the same observation, albeit a bit too late.

Zvobgo, having been a legal luminary of his time, is credited, or is it discredited, for crafting the old Constitution that gave Mugabe unfettered presidential powers.

Those who have been subjected to Mugabe's State-sponsored terror in his near four decades of despotic rule should feel highly insulted by the old man's utterances.

It is really angering to learn that Mugabe still carries a sense of entitlement to this country.

What will it take for Mugabe to grasp that Zimbabwe is not his private property. It is apparent that Mugabe still staunchly submits to the absurd philosophy once expressed in an interview with Supa Mandiwanzira that "No one could have ruled this country better". It is sickening at the worst and infuriating to put it mildly.

I really wonder what it takes for Mugabe to realise that indeed the bus has left and, like incumbent President Emmerson Mnangagwa articulated, this country has moved on.
No sane person; no person who earns an honest living, yearns for a return to "Mugabeism".

It invoked a sense of shock to hear Mugabe feel for his sidekicks, whom he claims were maimed and brutalised during the military intervention.

One wonders whether Mugabe did not have a heart to feel for the millions of Zimbabweans, who suffered under his toxic rule. Surely, how on earth does Mugabe think that Zimbabwe was democratic under him.

What locus standi does Mugabe have to demand a return to a purported normal democracy? What disgrace does he want the world to assign to the new dispensation?
"I have nothing against Emmerson … but he must be legal," where the words from none other than the man who notoriously pulled victory from Tsvangirai's hands. How legal does he want Mnangagwa to be?

Mugabe is trying to sound clever and intelligent, but we all know there was nothing democratic about his rule. We have seen under the new administration, a semblance of democracy though a nascent one.

People have criticised Mnangagwa and talk openly about his perceived failures without fear of the menacing intelligence apparatchiks, who characterised his rule.

In all honest, if Mugabe wants to understand what the word disgrace means he should know that the greatest disgrace in Zimbabwean politics is precisely what happened in 2008 when he, admittedly, lost elections to Morgan Tsvangirai by a wide margin and unashamedly refused to vacate State House.

That is the time when he visited a huge disgrace upon this nation. Even more, withholding election results for a month as he did in 2008 is the apt definition of a disgrace.

Denying the presidency to a clear winner is the ultimate urination upon the democracy he wants to resurrect today.

Further, beating civillians into submission in a forced runoff is proof solid of a disgrace.

That a citizen of a country disappears as happened to Itai Dzamara and there is clear reluctance to launch an inquiry tells us that Mugabe is hardly the person to preach a return to democracy.

Institutions suffered under his watch and he cared little and continued on the path of amassing personal wealth.

While Mugabe may want the world to believe that he was forced to resign, it is apparent that the man now trying to put up a brave face and demonising the current administration knows in his heart that his rule was disastrous.

Mugabe even mentioned that he had acted "in the best interest of the people of Zimbabwe," upon resignation. Today he makes a somersault and tries to paint himself as popular.

If Mugabe really believes in the illegitimacy of the current government, he must do the honourable thing and challenge the constitutionality of the government in the courts.

People around Mugabe must justly advise the old man, lest he continue to disgrace himself.

All said and done, Mugabe must be reminded that the real disgrace was experienced in 2008, when he forcefully remained in power. The old man must stop seeking long lost relevance. Indeed the country has moved on.

-------------
Learnmore Zuze is a law officer and writes in his own capacity. E-mail lastawa77@gmail.com