Zivanai Nyikavanhu

The Weakness of the rising Opposition Groupings.

‘Dictators like Mnangagws are impervious to reason. The only voice a dictator like him listens to is his own voice.

Political repression is an effective weapon in the hands of Zimbabwe despots.

Opposition parties are either outlawed or accorded very little political leeway. Key opposition leaders are arrested, intimidated and even killed.

Cowed into submission, some intellectuals in the opposition tend to switch camps. In other words, they become political prostitutes eg (Khupe). Though highly educated with PhDs, a multitude of them have sold off their consciences, integrity and principles as they kowtow to the diktats of barbarous dictators.

As prostitutes, they have partaken of the plunder, misrule and repression of their people’,
A dictator is a dictator. “The only good dictator is a dead one like Mugabe”.

The crux of my argument in this article is that Zimbabweans and other people chaffing under the yoke of despotism should steer clear of confusing ideological with systemic dictatorship -dictatorship that emerges from faulty institutions and systems. Any political system that concentrates power in the hands of one person, will inevitably degenerate into a dictatorship same like what ZanuPf is doing in our country. The culprit is the system—not ideology or culture.

“It takes an intelligent or smart opposition party or leader to make a democracy work”, not the pamberi – pamberina noisy type that simply chants ‘ ED or Chiwenga or Mohadi or ZanuPf must go!’. Dictators have triumphed mainly because the opposition parties are fragmented, lack focus and prone to squabbling.

All too often, opposition parties that set out to liberate their countries from tyranny wind up selling out, fighting among themselves, and sowing seeds of discord.

Some opposition leaders are themselves closet dictators, exhibiting the same dictatorial tendencies they so loudly den.