By Valerie Karimakwenda MDC Alliance UK And Ireland Youth Assembly Organising Secretary
Violence, unleashed by ZANU PF, to force Zimbabweans to give it legitimacy, through the ballot box, from as early 2000s has failed dismally.
So did other machinations of ZANU PF, such as lawfare, state capture, a resistance to devolution, conjoining of the three arms of the State, partisan distribution of desperately needed food, among others.
The opposition, thanks to its remarkably resilience, it has trounced all ZANU PF efforts to evolve into a one party state.
Defections by disillusioned opposition officials, attempts to capture and influence urban local services and their subsequent, will be naturally abortive.
They will miscarry on the basis of the fact that, the political apathy that ZANU PF rode at the expense of economic development and growth is now exhausted, hence the desperate attempts stated above.
ZANU PF under Emmerson Mnangagwa has the erroneous assumption that sponsoring defections, cajoling them to jump ship and join ZANU PF will translate to mass exodus of loyal opposition supporters who have suffered the brunt of a repressive and human rights violating security system.
ZANU PF will be disappointed. Those who defect are nothing but career politicians. Men and women who are sellouts to the struggle against tyranny.
They don’t serve the people. The defections only serve to brighten their colors, colors of betrayal.
The people in their respective constituencies, most of them who suffered from Zanu Pf exclusionary arm twisting tactics such as partisan distribution of food, will not suddenly follow the defectors.
Communities are yet to heal from these divisive and coercive machinations, and joining ZANU PF, following the traitors because they, the defectors love money or power the people denied them through Congress is ample testimony.
ZANU PF thinks that Zimbabweans have intelligence of donkeys, as such, a capture of local urban government operations such as water supply and refuse collection will be such an avenue for a landslide victory, come the 2023 elections. Zimbabweans are well aware of the economic mismanagement and rot that had been presided over by ZANU PF. The people know that ZANU PF flaunts their wealth in their faces, meant for them. For instance, Chiwenga’s brazen opulence of having a mansion valued in millions of American dollars, at the same time being a minister of health running a broken health system, without critical drugs, equipment and infrastructure, to the extent of seeking Chinese medical attention is proof that ZANU PF attempts to capture the local government operations are vain and satisfyingly, futile.
A president who gives a permit to colonial Chinese exploit, without recourse or conscience, natural resources of communities in Hwange is an example of ZANU PF insincerity and lack of empathy for the common and no longer unusual or sacred suffering of Zimbabweans under the yoke of Zimbabweans. The same president who gives more than $20000 USD to a foreign country for construction of a school in a foreign country, while neglecting run down and dilapidated rural schools infrastructure, is the president Zimbabweans know, hence their choice in the people centered opposition, their choice that ZANU PF thinks it can circumvent, by capturing the operations of urban councils.
The people know better, the opposition remains unfazed.
Age limits and so called Patriot bills targeting the opposition, seeking genuine change that is pro-people is another bout of ZANU PF plans destined to miscarry spectacularly. For one, there is nothing patriotic about ZANU PF. There is nothing patriotic about a president who hires a private jet while people are dying in large numbers in hospitals owing to lack of crucial equipment. There is nothing patriotic about a president who has a stake in a company that removes people from their ancestral lands for profit not is there anything patriotic about a first family that awards itself a multi-million tender, unprodecurally at that. ZANU PF has no grounds to legitimately bar the opposition from contesting elections it is favored to win, that having said, ZANU PF is the most unpatriotic collective in history of politics.
In conclusion, all of ZANU PF attempts to derail the opposition have hit the amazing brick wall of opposition resilience, supported by an unwavering public, that is no longer largely apathetic, hence the barrage of donkey brained schemes by ZANU PF. The opposition will continue to be the people’s choice of their consent, and the same opposition will remain the sole custodian of popular will and legitimacy.
ZANU PF will, as before be deprived…
