What triggered the call for the failed 31 March 'uprising' in Zimbabwe?

The old-age wisdom that facts are stubborn came alive last week after social media platforms and sections of the mainstream media went into a frenzy with sensational claims that the Parliament of Zimbabwe was "tactically shut down" on Tuesday. The alleged shutdown was rumoured to be a tactic to avoid the commencement of an impeachment process against President Mnangagwa. In the same vein, on the next day, it was intimated that the Ministry of Local Government and Public Works "bribed" some MPs who had allegedly agreed to vote against the alleged impeachment with "urban land or stands for votes". The sensational claims were made behind a spirited but doomed campaign to cast the dismally failed call for an uprising on 31 March 2025 as a "huge success".

Based on readily available and incontrovertible evidence that can easily be verified and corroborated, as shown below, the sensational claims-about a "tactical shutdown of Parliament" and the allegation of the bribery of MPs-were political, emotive, and utterly false, with no basis in fact or reality.

ZIM under the Spell of an Amoral Culture of Disinformation and Misinformation

Before sharing the evidence, the regrettable point should be made, and made in the strongest possible terms that Zimbabwe is currently experiencing a two-pronged, bad spell of a debilitating disinformation and misinformation amoral culture, which has taken root in the country's public discourse.

The bad spell now defines the practice or conduct of what is now seen as the 'opposition as usual,' which has adherents and proponents from across the political divide. Their politics revolve and pivot on who and not what one supports, grouping under factionalism (if they're in ZanuPF) or associating under cultic individualism (if they're in the opposition).

Two Strands of the Disinformation and Misinformation Culture

One strand of the bad spell is characterised by quarters or people who want to be told and who take as valid only what they want to hear, regardless of whether it's true or not. This group of people also wants to be shown only what they want to see, regardless of whether it's real or fake.

Moreover, they are complemented or accommodated by the other strand of the bad spell, namely, people - some who style themselves as journalists and others who are called social media influencers. These people unashamedly insist on and take pride in reporting or peddling as 'news' or 'information' whatever they hear or whatever they are told without verifying or cross-checking its validity or truth.

For instance, a prominent journalist and social media influencer responded shamelessly by claiming that, "Journalists report what has been said! You want me not to say what she said until I have evidence?"; when challenged on reporting information without first verifying its accuracy.

On the eve of the failed uprising that had been called for 31 March 2025, the same leading journalist cum social media influencer posted a message purportedly from a passenger on an Emirates flight that was about to depart from Robert Gabriel Mugabe International Airport in Harare. The message claimed that ZanuPF national spokesperson Christopher Mutsvangwa and his wife, Monica Mutsvangwa, who is Minister of women affairs Community, Small and Medium Enterprises Development, had fled to Dubai, ostensibly in light of the uprising that had been slated for the next day. The allegedly verbatim message from a purported Zimbabwean passenger allegedly on the same Emirates Flight EK714 with the reportedly fleeing Mutsvangwas, sensationally said, "The Mutsvangwas are on EK714 to Dubai. Flight taking off just now".

The message went viral not only on social media platforms but also in sections of the media that were supporting the call for the failed uprising on 31 March 2025. But the message, posted by the leading journalist, was not just false; it was pure fiction posted either without verification or created by the journalist or people who were working with the journalist to manufacture and spread falsehoods in support of a doomed uprising.

After the message was proven to be false beyond any doubt, the journalist cum social media influencer who generated or peddled it did not apologise. Some - including its originator - deleted it, while others still have the message on their timelines to this day.

The journalists and social media influencers who have been running amok with this new culture of disinformation and misinformation claim to "tell it like they hear it", not "like it is".

From a professional and ethical point of view, journalism should not be based on what is said or on hearsay. Journalism should be factual, accurate, objective, fair, balanced, and impartial. Messaging or communication without these qualities is anything but journalism. Journalists cum social media influencers whose posts are not factual, accurate, objective, fair, balanced and impartial; should not call themselves journalists and should not describe what they do as journalism.

The problem with this now-endemic posture or disinformation and misinformation culture is not only that it is manifestly irrational and unethical but that it creates and fosters a dangerous gap between reality and fantasy.

This gap has become a volatile recipe for irreparably damaging reputations of individuals and institutions. It also promotes irrational and inflammatory public discourse littered with gratuitous insults or outright falsehoods that can easily incite violence with devastating consequences.

The disinformation and misinformation culture in Zimbabwe is vividly illustrated by the recent viral claims. These claims alleged that Parliament was "tactically shut down" to prevent President Mnangagwa's impeachment and that MPs were bribed with land to oppose this. Additionally, self-indulgent assertions that a call for a March 31, 2025 uprising resulted in a "huge stayaway success" further exemplify this trend.

There was no, and there is no Impeachment Motion in Parliament

Claims of the shutdown of Parliament were not made with any evidence whatsoever. The journalists and social media influencers who made the claims said they were merely reporting or sharing what "they had been told". They did not say they had verified or crosschecked "what they had been told".

Their 'evidence' was the mere fact that the National Assembly had concluded its business early on Tuesday, 8 April 2025, and adjourned until 6 May 2025. Based on information from unnamed sources, the reason for the National Assembly had concluded its business for the day early and adjourned to 6 May 2025 was, that - as one of the journalist cum social media influencer put it - "Mnangagwa tactically shut down Parliament this week to avoid the impeachment process starting under the guise of 'the usual break'".

Not only was the story based on hearsay and nothing else, but it came from unnamed sources who could not be contacted for verification or crosschecking to corroborate the claims.

What is troubling about this is that the journalists and social media influencers who made this claim knew only too well that there is now a significant audience of the 'opposition as usual". This audience consists of quarters or people who want to be told and who take as valid only what they want to hear. These people wanted to hear that the alleged impeachment process, which had been announced the previous week by the chief organiser of the failed 31 March uprising, was set to commence on 8 April 2025, regardless of the facts of the situation. The journalists and social media influencers who are now trading in disinformation and misinformation were only too happy, ready, and willing to oblige this audience.

However, the evidence is clear: the claim is political, emotive, and utterly false with no basis in fact or reality. Here's why.

The alleged impeachment motion, said to have been drafted by Hon Tendai Biti, has circulated only on social media platforms, including these streets, but nowhere else, and certainly not in Parliament, where it has not been seen. A copy of the motion that has been circulated does not have a mover or a seconder, although the word doing the rounds is that Hon. Agency Gumbo is the designated mover of the motion should it ever get to the floor in Parliament. The journalists and social media influencers who sensationally claimed that the Parliament of Zimbabwe was "tactically shut down" on Tuesday to allegedly avoid the start an alleged process of the impeachment of President Mnangagwa had an obligation to establish that there was a motion and that the motion had in fact been tabled in Parliament to start the alleged impeachment process. It is a no-brainer that Parliament cannot have an impeachment process of an impeachment motion that is not before it.

Under section 97 of the Constitution of Zimbabwe adopted in 2013, a process of an impeachment motion that meets Parliament's Standing Rules and Orders and is approved by Parliament's Committee on Standing Rules and Orders (CSRO), can only take place in a joint sitting of the Senate and the National Assembly. This is the process that was followed in November 2017, when the Senate and the National Assembly convened a joint sitting to impeach the late former President Robert Mugabe. An impeachment process cannot be in either the National Assembly or the Senate as single Houses.

No joint sitting of the Senate and National Assembly was convened in advance for a joint sitting on any impeachment process on Tuesday, 8 April 2025 or on any other day. It is therefore bizarre and mischievous to claim that the Parliament of Zimbabwe was "tactically shut down" on Tuesday last week to allegedly avoid the start of an alleged process of the impeachment of President Mnangagwa when there was no joint sitting of the Senate and National Assembly scheduled for that day to start any impeachment process. Only a joint sitting could have been "shutdown", but there was no such joint sitting last Tuesday to be shutdown.

For the sake of completeness, anyone familiar with how business in Parliament is conducted would know that, as a creature of rules and orders, the business of Parliament is done procedurally and, as such, the business of the day is decided in advance of any sitting and is published in the Order Paper of each House.

Available and verifiable evidence shows beyond any doubt that there was no withdrawal or editing of any Order Paper to "tactically shut down Parliament" on Tuesday to allegedly avoid the start of an alleged process of the impeachment of President Mnangagwa. The suggestion that there was such a shutdown is not only blatantly false, it is also outrageous and preposterous.

For the avoidance of doubt, below are links to the Order Papers of both the National Assembly and the Senate for 6 May 2025 - the date to which both Houses of Parliament adjourned – with a Hansard record of the business that each House conducted on 8 April 2025:

National Assembly Votes & Proceedings for 8/4/2025 and Orders of the Day & Notices of Motion for 6/5/2025 https://drive.google.com/file/d/10_dVh4NXknRQnsOFORG8fghClrSAkG3t/view?usp=sharing

Senate Votes & Proceedings for 8/4/2025 and Orders of the Day & Notices of Motion for 6/5/2025

https://drive.google.com/file/d/10Yrj1iXHvp1-9VCOFOFcZpspbRX4UpKt/view?usp=sharing

Notably, the Orders of the Day and the Notices of Motion for 6 May 2025 are already known because they have been published as per the practice, and there's no motion of impeachment among them; there was none to "tactically shut down Parliament" on 8 April 2025, and there will be none on 6 May 2025. Full stop.

Stands for MPs an Old, Ongoing Condition of Service Scheme Unconnected to any Alleged Impeachment or Purported 2030 Process

Then there's the perplexing claim that, through the Ministry of Local Government and Public Works, the Government of Zimbabwe last Wednesday on 9 April 2025 allegedly doled out to MPs land-for-votes in an alleged corruption scandal, "in which Members of Parliament who had agreed to vote against Emmerson Mnangagwa's impeachment and to extend his term of office were rewarded with urban land, promised money, and an extension of their terms to 2030".

While this claim was reported or peddled as a fact, no iota of evidence was given to support it. None.

If the journalists cum social media influencers who first reported the claim had not relied on hearsay, and if they had cared to first verify the claim before peddling it, they would have immediately found out that the said stands for MPs are not a bribery scheme by any stretch of the imagination.

The stands are part of a long-standing scheme or benefit of service started way back in 2013, whose implementation - which did not start last Wednesday - has been painfully slow.

An extract of a minute of Parliament's Committee on Standing Rules and Orders (CSRO) held on 29 July 2024, headlined, "RESOLUTIONS OF THE COMMITTEE ON STANDING RULES AND ORDERS – ALLOCATION OF STANDS TO MEMBERS AND STAFF OF PARLIAMENT", noted the following about the stands that were allocated to deserving MPs last Wednesday as a just and deserved benefit of their service:

1.0 The 3rd Committee on Standing Rules and Orders meeting held on 29thJuly 2024 received an update from the Minister of Local Government and Public Works. The Minister informed the meeting that the allocation of stands to Members had faced numerous challenges. For instance, the land at Stuhm faced numerous encumbrances. Notably, in 2016, the same land was allocated to the Ministry of Defence and to a developer who had made minimal progress on the land. Consequently, the Ministry of Local Government and Public Works decided to grant a moratorium on the land.

1.1 The Minister further advised that the Ministry planned to liquidate stands for the 8th and 9th Parliament by December 2024. In that regard, the Ministry had identified 100 stands for distribution to Members of Parliament. Additionally, the Ministry had also identified substantial tracts of land held by land barons, which it intended to repossess for redistribution.

Update on Local Government Stands for MPs: 29 July 2024

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1tTj43lBKjruwznLI8Xf4BwawA1Jtmqcf/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=116474357798824336360&rtpof=true&sd=true

Notably, the scheme is not only for MPs but also for the staff of Parliament.

It has taken Parliament and the Ministry of Local Government and Public Works eight (8) months to partially implement the CSRO resolution of 29 July 2024. On that day, the Ministry committed to allocating 100 stands under the scheme. A list of 100 MPs to receive the stands was prepared by the Chief Whips in Parliament. The Chief Whips are contactable to crosscheck and verify the facts.

The verifiable record shows that the list then underwent iterative revisions, with the final list used last Wednesday prepared on 19 March 2025, well before the purported impeachment motion was circulated on social media platforms, following the failed uprising called for 31 March.

SCANNED.PARLIAMENT.STANDS.pdf

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Glrg_PLbtuSAlLPLLVv1ZBGj-p_GqpuA/view?usp=sharing

From the above list, circa 77 members - reportedly including some who were not on the list but who physically presented themselves and took their lucky chances on the day - were allocated stands last Wednesday.

The list has former MPs from the 8th Parliament (2013 to 2018), the 9th Parliament (2018 to 2023), and current MPs in the 10th Parliament (2023 to 2028). Notably, the list includes prominent MPs in the 9th Parliament, such as Hon Tendai Biti, and several deceased MPs since the 8th Parliament, whose stands are allocated to their estates.

In the circumstances, it is rank political mischief for anyone, let alone the journalists cum social media influencers in question, to claim that a long standing scheme to allocate stands to MPS and the staff of Parliament, based on such a hybrid list of MPs going back to 2013, is a bribery scheme to buy votes for an alleged impeachment motion whose process was allegedly slated to start last Tuesday.

Who in his or her right mind believes that deceased MPs on the list can vote on any motion, let alone an impeachment motion?

False Claims that the Call for an Uprising on 31 March 2025 was a Huge Success

Strangely, the journalists cum social media influencers - who have sensationally claimed that the Parliament of Zimbabwe was "tactically shut down" last Tuesday to allegedly avoid the start of an alleged impeachment process and that, last Wednesday, the Ministry of Local Government and Public Works "bribed" MPs with urban land to allegedly have them vote against an alleged impeachment - also claim that their allegations are indicative of what they say is the "huge success of the 31 March call for an uprising".

In this connection, one of the journalist cum social media influencers claimed that the lead organiser who called for an uprising on 31 March 2025, "succeeded in putting the 2030 public campaign on hold, forcing Mnangagwa to turn to bribery. He also succeeded in proposing the impeachment route, which forced Mnangagwa not only to shut down Parliament until May but also exposed him by making the embarrassing bribery move. This will also expose the MPs who are for hire".

But, as shown in the foregoing, these self-indulgent claims are based on hearsay and are made to peddle what some political quarters want to hear. The claims are not supported by any corroborated facts or verifiable evidence. As such, the claims are telling examples of the unfortunate culture of disinformation and misinformation that now characterises public discourse in Zimbabwe.

The verifiable evidence is crystal clear and compelling.

For the better part of last month, a call was repeatedly made for people to take to the streets in their numbers on 31 March in what was dubbed "an uprising" to overthrow and change the government of the day, to repeat history in the spirit and manner of what happened in November 2017 when there was a military coup, which was officially packaged as a "military assisted transition".

The Ill-Fated Uprising Call

Here is the verbatim reproduction of the 31 March uprising call, the record of which is all over the public domain and thus common cause:

"Mhuri ye Zimbabwe eeeh 31 March, 31 March…tiriku kumbirisai kuti mhunu wese kubva ku Plumtree - in fact haizi demonstration tinoiti izvo UPRISING - munhu wese ngapinde mu street. Munhu wese ngapinde mu street. Right".

ENGLISH TRANSLATION: "To the Zimbabwean family eeh on 31 March, 31 March, we are asking everyone from Plumtree - in fact it will not be a demonstration but AN UPRISING - everyone must take to the streets. Everyone must take to the street. Right!"

That the call was for an uprising on 31 March 2025 was loud and unambiguously clear!

The fact that the call was for "an uprising", was unambiguous and therefore unmistakable and beyond debate. An uprising is a revolt or rebellion against an established authority or government. In other words, an uprising is not a peaceful demonstration as provided in section 59 of the Constitution, nor is it a stayaway or a shutdown; it is an overthrow of the government of the day.

It is common cause that no uprising happened on 31 March 2024. In the big cities like Bulawayo and Harare, most residents stayed away, while some went about their business as usual, as did many others in smaller towns across the country.

This means that the uprising that had been planned and advertised did not happen; in other words, the uprising failed. Whereas a successful uprising is a revolution of one sort or another, a planned uprising that does not happen is treason or terrorism.

Given that the uprising that had been called for 31 March 2025 failed, not least because the people did not take to the streets as they had been asked to do, those who called for the failed uprising and their supporters among social media influencers as well as their local and foreign media mouthpieces have claimed that the calls for an uprising succeeded ostensibly because most residents in cities like Bulawayo and Harare stayed away from the streets, and did not do their "business as usual".

Like that of any political activity or programme, the outcome of calls for any political action such as an uprising can only be objectively evaluated or measured by the extent or degree to which they achieve their declared objective or goal.

On the back of a widespread, loud and clear call on Zimbabweans to take to the streets on 31 March 2025 for an uprising - and despite the fact the call started doing the rounds around mid February 2025 - the call for an uprising fell on deaf ears and failed badly because on the day; some Zimbabweans went about their business as usual, while many others simply stayed away from the streets across the country!

There was an unambiguous call for an uprising. There are only the following three screaming outcomes of the call:

The first outcome of what happened on 31 March 2025 is that the planned uprising failed. People did not take to the streets to rebel, revolt or overthrow the government as they had been called upon to do. Instead, some went about their usual business, while most stayed away from the streets.

The second outcome of what happened on 31 March 2025 is that the public heeded government appeals to ignore the calls for an uprising and stay away from the planned street protests.

"Calls for uprising in Zimbabwe largely ignored as public heeds government appeals to stay away"

www.washingtonpost.com /world/2025/03/31/zimbabwe-protests-mnangagwa-term-extension-zanupf/b8

It is disingenuous, false, and outrageous to describe or characterise the stayaway as some success of the call for an uprising. Such false and outrageous description or characterisation is a sad example of Zimbabwe's "opposition as usual" through which failed opposition politicians and their social media supporters want to be told what they want to hear or see; as is reported by their social media influencers as well as their local and foreign propaganda-media mouthpieces, whose reports are based on hearsay and are therefore not verifiable.

While the "opposition as usual" is free to play deaf and blind, the brutal reality that speaks for itself on the ground is that the uprising planned and called for 31 March 2025 failed and failed badly. The people did not take to the streets to rebel or revolt. The people ignored the call for an uprising.

The third outcome of what happened on 31 March 2025 is that the failure of the uprising, after the people ignored the call to take to the streets to rebel and revolt, leaves those who called for or who advertised or in any way aided and abetted the failed uprising, left themselves open to charges of and prosecution for treason and terrorism. This a hard fact that some might not want to hear, but it is indeed a truism that a failed call for an uprising is treason.

The Trigger of the Failed Call for an Uprising

To students of political science, the failed call for an uprising on 31 March 2025 begs the question: What triggered the mayhem in the first place?

This is an important question to interrogate because nothing happens without a cause. If the cause or trigger of the events that led to the call for an uprising on 31 March 2025 is not unravelled, the understanding of what happened and why it happened will remain incomplete, and the gap will risk a repeat or worse.

Here is what triggered the mayhem.

On 26 December 2024, ZBC-TV broadcast an interview that its senior reporter, Josephine Mugiyo, had with President Mnangagwa at State House in Harare, whose import unexpectedly and unintentionally triggered the events that led to the failed 31 March call for an uprising.

Relevant excerpts of the verbatim transcript [English translation] of the relevant part of the interview is reproduced below:

Josephine Mugiyo: We get a good welcome from President Emmerson Mnangagwa and the First Lady, Dr Auxillia Mnangagwa, who are both home. What is Christmas like for the President? May I come in, Your Excellency?
President: You are welcome!
Josephine Mugiyo: Merry Christmas.
President: Same to you. It's you, young people who revel at Christmas.
Josephine Mugiyo: Yes, we enjoy it and have fun.
President: We old people, don't care that much for Christmas.
Josephine Mugiyo: You mean old people are not interested in Christmas, at all?
President: Well not really, it's a day for resting. So, I have been resting in my office here at home.
Josephine Mugiyo: Okay.
President: I have been reflecting on who is going to keep their post, and who is going to be relieved of their post.
Journalist: On Christmas day, Your Excellency, you are busy at work?
President: This is the day to take stock and review the year in terms of who did their work well, and who did not; and I use the day to consider some new initiatives I need to take. That's the day I do that kind of work.
Josephine Mugiyo: While they are busy feasting on Christmas day, you are are making arrangements for work?
President: Yes, indeed. Today is the perfect day to use for planning, because there are no people here to  disturb me. Everyone is at home resting, so I have a few calls. I will be reflecting on who I will continue to work with next year and who I will let go....
Josephine Mugiyo: ...Don't you take a break and switch off the phones on Christmas day, Your Excellency?
President: ...Does the country stop functioning because it's Christmas? Actually this is the best period when one has some time to reflect without too many distractions; we are going into the new year. We must introduce new programmes, new policies. We must introspect about the past, our weaknesses, our strengths. We must look at that and say, this was my team. Is this the team that has delivered our vision, or does it require interrogating it.
Josephine Mugiyo: And are you going forward with that team, like you were saying earlier on?
President: No. I can't release now. I'll make my statement on, after, January 1.
(Link: The Full ZBC -TV interview)

https://x.com/ZBCNewsonline/status/1872247132931170560?t=tR4KQKHXpN3KvcmBH5wOug&s=19

This was a major interview with far-reaching implications, although it did not get the public attention that it deserved, except from some vested political interests which did not miss the import of the interview.

The interview was particularly significant because it signalled what was widely reported and understood to be an imminent, major cabinet reshuffle in the new year.
www.newzimbabwe.com
 
/mnangagwa-hints-at-cabinet-reshuffle-amid-factional-tensions-over-ed2030-slogan/
news.zanupfpatriots.com
/index.php/2024/12/26/president-ponders-cabinet-reshuffle-says-i-will-issue-a-statement/

After it was broadcast, the interview triggered an untold story which unfolded in the public domain in ways that, as it often happens in politics, ultimately gave hostage to fortune to opportunistic and arguably reckless and self-defeating elements who ended up making calls for an uprising that failed. How this happened requires an appreciation of the news-making and agenda-setting opportunities typically presented by the month of January.

Traditionally, and going as far back as one cares to go, the month of January in Zimbabwe is known for its notorious 'January disease', which is a colloquial description of the fact that, because people tend to overspend during the end of the year festive season, they end up with empty pockets; without money in January; and this lack of money is particularly common and widespread and it afflicts most people like a disease, in January.

There's another less known manifestation of this 'January disease' in Zimbabwe: the lack of news for the media to report because most or the typical newsmakers tend to be away in January, holidaying somewhere in or outside the country till the middle or even the end of the month. So, January in Zimbabwe is usually a dry month for newsrooms.

In April 1999, when this writer was asked to design the structure and methodology of work for the Constitutional Commission, Dr Edison Zvobgo, who oversaw the Commission as Minister Without Portfolio, invited the writer to Masvingo over a weekend to go through the raison d'être of the Commission. When recalling the public debates, especially concerning the position of the National Constitutional Assembly (NCA) then chaired by Morgan Tsvangirai, that had led to the setting up of the Commission, Dr Zvobgo gleefully mentioned to the writer that he had won the debate by taking advantage of the absence from the news space of his detractors in January 1999; during which he said he hogged the limelight alone in that month, and managed to set the agenda for the setting up of the Commission, beyond reversal.

So it is that January is arguably the best time to grab the news headlines for purposes of agenda-setting in Zimbabwe. During the years in government, this writer applied the Zvobgo strategy every year, with considerable success.

Apropos this 'January disease' background, regarding its opportunity for news-making, all hell broke loose when President Mnangagwa signalled an impending cabinet reshuffle in the @ZBCNewsOnline
 interview with Josephine Mugiyo on 26 December 2024.

Soon after the ZBC interview, as 2024 ended and 2025 was beckoning, a number of cabinet ministers became very vocal in the media about the "2030 agenda"; and they started calling for the immediate implementation of 'Resolution 1' of ZanuPF's National People's Conference adopted in October 2024 for President Mnangagwa's term of office to be extended to 2030 through an amendment to the Constitution of Zimbabwe.

In no time, and in apparent response to the 2030 calls by the cabinet ministers, some provincial ZanuPF leaders and MPs thought to be aspiring cabinet ministers joined the fray, also became vocal about the "2030 agenda" at party meetings and through the media; as they too called for the immediate implementation of 'Resolution 1' of ZanuPF's National People's Conference adopted in October 2024. Some of them went as far as drafting and circulating what they said was a motion on the "2030 agenda" they said they would move in Parliament.

In the circumstances, a spirited campaign ensued, involving some cabinet incumbents and some cabinet aspirants who seemed to believe that it was strategic to use the "2030 agenda" banner as a campaign to enhance their prospects of either being retained in or being appointed to the cabinet; in light of the imminent cabinet reshuffle that had been signalled by President Mnangagwa in the ZBC interview on 26 December 2024.

Although there was nothing amiss about this per se, it was nevertheless problematic.

The palpable campaign took place in the middle of the end-of-year festive season when the generality of the ZanuPF membership and party structures were still on holiday. Also, and this is particularly notable, both the Cabinet and Parliament were in recess for the annual break until early February 2025. This gave the distinct impression that the audience of the campaign was not the party membership or structures, not the Cabinet, not Parliament - all who were enjoying their vacation; the audience was President Mnangagwa who had signalled on national television on 26 December 2024 that he had spent his Christmas day reviewing his cabinet with a view to making major changes to it in the new year.

Because the campaign played out in public at party meetings and in the media, it became big news; in January, a month that is usually with little news report, besides road accidents or rainfall disasters related to the floods or cyclones.

Predictably, the campaign attracted the attention of media organisations as well as journalists cum social media influencers, whose reports in turn triggered the response of NGOs and church groups who mistook the campaign for cabinet positions by some government ministers and ZanuPF hopefuls as an orchestrated, organised and systematic push for 2030 by President Mnangagwa himself. Media organisations, journalists cum social media influencers, NGOs and some church groups came out with guns blazing against the perceived push.

A robust campaign for cabinet positions under the banner of the "2030 agenda", which was playing out very prominently in the media and at ZanuPF provincial meetings, having been triggered by a ZBC Christmas interview in which President Mnangagwa signalled a major and imminent cabinet reshuffle; was understandably but wrongly seen as a major push for the "2030 agenda".

This opened the floodgates.

Elements within other ZanuPF wings or factions, especially but not only in the ranks of the veterans of the liberation war, who have issues with the "2030 agenda", felt left out or left behind and insecure.

Because the two groups that were campaigning (the incumbents and aspirants) were campaigning under the same 20230 banner, calling for the immediate implementation of 'Resolution 1' of ZanuPF's National People's Conference adopted in October 2024, sections of the veterans of the liberation war linked up with factional interests and opposition elements to agitate against the 2030 banner used by the incumbents and aspirants.

As things turned out, a loose affiliation of 2030 opponents was born. The affiliation made a false start by confusing the 2030 banner - used by the campaigners for cabinet positions in what they thought was an imminent cabinet reshuffle - with an orchestrated, organised, and systematic push for 2030.  But, substantively speaking, a 2030 campaign banner for cabinet positions in January 2025 cannot be the same thing as a push for a constitutional amendment to remove presidential term limits.

In any event, the spirited and very visible campaign for cabinet positions under the 2030 banner opened the floodgates for muchekadzafa (scavenging) opportunists to pounce and call for an uprising, which failed on 31 March 2025, under the guise of "stopping the push for the 2030 agenda"; when all that was needed, if anything at all, was to stop the campaign for cabinet positions between some cabinet incumbents and some ZanuPF aspirants, who were triggered to expect an imminent and major cabinet reshuffle by the ZBC-TV interview with President Mnangagwa on 26 December 2024.

But in the end, as seen on 31 March 2025, the muchekadzafa opportunists came unstuck when it became clear that there was no "kill" or "bag" to scavenge or harvest.

To be clear, the use of the "2030 agenda" as a campaign mantra by some cabinet incumbents and some ZanuPF aspirants to retain or gain positions in what they thought or believed was an imminent and major cabinet reshuffle, was in itself not sinister; it was politics as usual. What was sinister was the distortion of the campaign by some muchekadzafa opportunists and the usual malcontents who misrepresented the campaign as a premeditated push by President Mnangagwa for the "2030 agenda".

Implications: Unity is Very Important

All told, the drama of the campaign for cabinet positions conveniently using the banner of the "2030 agenda" - and the opportunistic response to or confusion of that campaign by the muchekadzafa opportunists who saw that campaign as a push for immediate implementation of 'Resolution 1' of ZanuPF's National People's Conference adopted in October 2024 - has been costly to the country's national economic and development interests.

The country has practically lost the whole first quarter of the financial year, during which public discourse has been bogged down because of disinformation and misinformation pranks that have nothing whatsoever to do with service delivery issues from the standpoint of the implementation of the national budget, which directly affects people's daily livelihoods.

Students of public policy know only too well that the cacophonic noise that has attracted the most likes and has grabbed countless headlines since January 2025 has nothing to do with public accountability at all, for two main reasons: Firstly, the noise has been all about disinformation and misinformation.

Secondly, and more importantly, public accountability arises from how government ministries, departments, and parastatals are performing in term of the delivery of their mandate using their approved budgets. It is that performance that tells the story of service delivery, not the disinformation and misinformation fairy tales on social media platforms that are typically based on mostly unproven hearsay.

Thirdly, it is now self-evident that effective and efficient service delivery is compromised in and by a toxic policy making environment such as the one Zimbabwe has experienced over the first quarter of 2025. Something must give.

In times like this, national unity is a paramount requisite. For ZanuPF, this should start with party unity. The national leadership has a responsibility to exude such unity. It is propitious that the end of the first quarter of the year, April, is the National Independence month, the month when Zimbabwe was born on its 18th day, to be commemorated this Friday.

Zimbabwe has enough experience, some of it sad and painful, from which to remember the importance of national unity. The idea of a divided or factionalised national leadership or government is detrimental to the national interest. It's impossible to unite a nation whose national leadership is divided.

For national unity to hold, there must be a functional and visible symbiotic relationship between the people as the base of the nation and the leadership as the apex of the base. In government, this means that the president and his deputy or deputies must not only work together but must also be seen to be working together as one at all times, especially in times like this. It is in this trite yet fundamental context that the first line of defence for any president at all times in any government or political system is his deputy or deputies.

On the back of the first quarter of the year, which has gone with the wind, the commemoration of Independence Day 2025 this week on Friday provides a timely opportunity to remember, reflect, reset and recover!

Unity is Very Important!