Zimbabwe's dawn of hope will break

HEADS, big and small must roll, and be seen by the masses in this country to tumble as both a warning and an example that any people driven by insatiable power hunger cannot, and should not be allowed in future to ride rough shod over a decision by the majority in critical events such as national elections and get away with it.

The matter in point here is the post harmonised elections violence on August 1 in which MDC Alliance hooligans vented their anger at Zanu-PF's electoral victory by rampaging through Harare's Central Business District, looting shops, torching cars and beating up people among other atrocities and bringing businesses to a standstill with six people left dead.

This week all peace loving Zimbabweans and potential foreign businesses must have sighed with relief when President Emmerson Mnangagwa — inaugurated last Sunday to continue as Head of State and Government — announced that he had appointed a six-member commission of inquiry into the violence that had been preceded by such peaceful campaigning as had made Zimbabwe a global example to follow in election campaigns. But, it is no exaggeration to suggest that after that dark day in Zimbabwe's capital city, foreign investors raring to do business in Zimbabwe as well as tourists keen to spend their hard earned capital exploring various attractions in our country, may have developed cold feet and waited at home, their fingers crossed, to see how the government here would act to clear the hurdles imposed by the violent demonstration which the police quelled with the help of the military.

The seven-member commission comprising locals and non-Zimbabweans prominent in their individual capacities will publish its findings, according to President Mnangagwa, and that move is certain to clear Zimbabwe of a no-go area stigma created by the violent protests in Harare and throw our country back into the embrace of the international community with which the new dispensation government has been busy re-engaging.

German's readiness to resume funding to Zimbabwe and a positive voice from the British government, also this week, should be seen by Zimbabwe and other countries as votes of confidence in the way that President Mnangagwa's government is navigating the way for Zimbabwe's restoration of relations with the rest of the global village.

This bold move is in spite of American President Donald Trump who has kept his head in the sand by re-entrenching economic sanctions against our country in an obviously useless effort to try to effect regime change as punishment for the land reform programme undertaken by the Zanu-PF government to reclaim land stolen from black people in this country by those without knees during colonisation.

It is also no doubt the expectation of peace-loving Zimbabweans that those behind the explosion at a pre-election rally addressed by President Mnangagwa at White City stadium in Bulawayo on July 22 are now known and that they will receive their just desserts in due course. It is believed by many that those who planted the explosive device at the venue which ought to have been guarded by the police or other security personnel had intended to eliminate President Mnangagwa as a strong competitor in the elections.

This pen believes that Zimbabwe's security personnel are so skilled in their investigative acumen that they will not allow potential killers, or those bent on disturbing the peace for political reasons, to remain elusive and try again to eliminate a political figure perceived as a stumbling block to the fortunes of their masters. But if no one has been fingered for involvement in that heinous act, many Zimbabweans will be left to wonder as to what exactly our security personnel are good at — and that certainly posits a damning vote of no confidence in the work of the guardians of both the law and peace.

What undoubtedly comes as a shock to many law abiding citizens of this country is that some opposition politicians and their followers appear by their statements to thumb their noses at the Constitutional Court's verdict that President Mnangagwa won the presidential vote and that, on account of the Supreme court's determination, he was inaugurated as that man on the top political spot in our nation.

Listen to their utterances on the Voice of America's Studio 7 manned mainly by Zimbabweans and you (yes, you) will be left in no doubt that these characters still believe that their president, Mr Nelson Chamisa, should have been declared the victor and installed as Zimbabwe's new Head of State instead of ED.

In fact, Studio 7 should carry the can for allowing Zimbabweans to continue that debate on the just ended elections with most Zimbabweans in the diaspora and a few from this country maintaining that the presidential election was stolen from them and accusing the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission of helping to rig the vote against them. But surely does it make sense that two thirds of the millions of voters in this country would stake their ballots behind Zanu-PF in the parliamentary elections and then vote for the leader of the opposition MDC Alliance for the presidency of our country?

Only people with a myopic view of democratic elections as well as a disregard for the Constitutional Court's judgement will believe in a reversed bromide of the verdict of both of the masses and of the Supreme court in this country with regards to the just-ended harmonised elections. Now that can only point to dictatorial tendencies that leave no room for democratic practices of which all Zimbabweans pride themselves.

In an apparent bid to tarnish the image of Zanu-PF, some Zimbabweans in the diaspora have gone so far as to claim it was Zanu-PF supporters, and not those of the MDC Alliance, who were involved in the Harare violence.

It should be realised by all that Zimbabweans in the diaspora are bitter at not being allowed by the government to come home en masse to vote, or vote in their countries of refuge — to eliminate Zanu-PF from Government — hence their persistent fulminations. But, anyway, is it not strange politically that a foreign country, in this case the USA, would allow citizens from a country with which it is at war, as it were, to employ Zimbabweans on its radio station and expect them to promote a good image of their motherland?

Those Zimbabweans on Studio 7 are no doubt stooges of that imperialist Western country where they shamelessly carry out their duty against their native country for measly dirty bucks. Or have they been given protective citizenship so that they masquerade as Zimbabweans when in reality they have become a part of those waging political and economic war on their motherland? But are these people still welcome back to a Zimbabwe whose political and economic annihilation they promote using the broadcast tool of this country's enemy?

And now here comes something that potentially portrays present and future generations of politicians in our country as little children who do not know what they really want. Just before the elections, former president Mr Robert Mugabe openly declared that he "will not vote for Zanu-PF" and lauded Mr Chamisa as a potential good ruler to back — and threw his weight behind the man whose political party Mr Mugabe had previously denounced as a stooge of the West. Then boom, comes the Constitutional Court verdict after Mr Chamisa challenged ED's presidential victory. But perhaps more mind-boggling is this.

At his inauguration, Mnangagwa read a letter from his former boss as President and he as Mugabe's First Vice President, congratulating "your Excellency" for winning the presidential contest. Does Mr Mugabe's act revalidate the adage that "politics is a dirty game" in which anything can and does happen? Or is this not an affirmation that not every politician or every non-politician either, is a super ager.

In this writer's view, the long and short of the conversation regarding the just ended elections should be for Zimbabweans to forgive and forget the contradictions demonstrated in the above discourse in the same way as God forgets and forgives even the most hideous of our sins to enjoy a new dawn of hope as His children. Look, for instance, as to what happened to the Israelites after God using Moses freed them from bondage in Egypt. Three days after crossing the river Jordan into the wilderness, they grew thirsty but found the waters of Mara too bitter to drink. That was God's desire for the Israelites to completely submit themselves to God who had brought them out of slavery and to the land he had promised them.

Likewise, God allowed the enemy to literally kill this country's economy so that He could resurrect our nation as the kind of people that He, the Almighty, wants us to be like. Thus, it is not only incumbent but imperative that Zimbabweans should humble themselves and surrender to the Creator who alone can and will make a dawn of new hope break on this country when we, his children, entreat him with prayer and supplication. The ball is in our court and God waits for it for a good return on His part.