PUBLIC STATEMENT
Greetings Zimbabwe!! I write to you all my dear fathers and mothers, my brothers and sisters, comrades and friends such that I inform you of my decision regarding politics and related matters of greater interest to me and possibly to some of you.
1) BACKGROUND
1.1. – 24 years ago at the age of 17, I made a decision to join politics marking the genesis of my political journey.
1.2. – Coming from a background of strict parenting in an environment of deep poverty and utmost lack, where my late parents taught us not to be greed and selfish but to love, to be content and selfless, be upright and honest, straightforward and open, principled and dependable, considerate of each other’s needs and be willing to share in both times of plenty and lack, I had one very big dream and ambition that pushed me to get involved in politics and that dream and aspiration was never about the primitive accumulation of wealth or self-enrichment, neither was it about political power acquisition nor becoming famous or powerful but that I must join politics as an avenue for public service such that I would get an opportunity to selflessly serve my country and its people in ways that will not only provide hope to the hopeless but in ways that will also provide opportunities to create collective prosperity for all in order to eradicate deep-rooted poverty in our community and empower all the people especially the weak and the less privileged of our society.
1.3. – Growing up under those very harsh conditions which I wish no one to live under, I went into politics aspiring to leave an indelible mark in the selfless service of others, championing and pursuing the cause of the weak and the less-privileged. I also intended to reciprocate the invaluable help, support and love I always got from our community and total strangers who not only sacrificed their material resources and time to help me as an orphan at very critical stages of my life but they also did so without asking for a thing in return. This was the dream of a small boy in a village in Rushinga.
1.4. – Because of these values that were taught and given to us by our late parents, I found myself easily falling in love with socialism and left-wing political ideologies mainly because these ideologies support and seek to achieve social equality and egalitarianism and when I looked around for a political home, I quickly opted to join the ZANUPF Party.
1.5. – I will never shy away from this reality that I loved ZANUPF and believed in that party. I served this party and gave it my all. I invested and sacrificed a lot for the party. However, my relationship with the party was not at all times cosy as I would find myself being at loggerheads with the leadership as I would be suspended twice and expelled twice also within a period of 5 years, ie between 2015 and 2020.
1.6.- After my first expulsion in 2015 for openly advocating for the ascendancy of Cde ED Mnangagwa as successor to President RG Mugabe, I rejoined ZANUPF in November 2017 as I believed that the new President and the new leadership would do things differently and deliver. 3 years later in March 2020 I found myself summarily suspended and expelled from ZANUPF again but this time for upsetting leadership through unwelcome radical activism against corruption and looting as a youth leader as I also refused to undergo ideological retraining which I took as an insult to me.
1.7.- In August 2021, the Front for Economic Emancipation in Zimbabwe (FEEZ) which we had launched on the 25th of May 2020 as an apolitical movement was transformed into a political party with the intention to deal with what we noted as a leadership crisis which was manifesting itself in various ways
1.8.- Two years later faced with the 2023 harmonized elections, the FEEZ party took a decision not to sponsor candidates to contest under its banner for a number of reasons and I went on to publicly support the candidature of Cde Kasukuwere as an independent presidential candidate and became the national convener for his campaign before he was legally elbowed out while I went on to contest as an independent MP candidate in Mt Darwin South and lost in that contest.
1.9.- 24 years after my decision to go political, I look back and take stock of my achievements in line with my dream and aspirations as mentioned earlier on. I had to give myself enough time to reflect, introspect, self-critic and have deep soul-searching moments and have chosen to tell myself the bitter and honest truth than lie to myself. Yes I had a very honest conversation with myself in a bid to redeem myself from going further and further away from my dream and aspirations
2) OBTAINING REALITIES
2.1.- I accept that while there are so many things that I am personally proud of which I did and stood for as a politician, there are also those that I am not proud of. Being a young, inexperienced, energetic and adventurous person then, I made certain achievements but also made some mistakes when I lost sight of my target and went deep into the fascinating but very toxic political games and got my vision contaminated.
2.2.- I admit that in the period under review I digressed and got entangled in a lot more than what I had set out to achieve though I am not bitter but glad that I have learnt a lot and gained valuable experience from it all as I still have the chance and time to make things right.
2.3.- God knows and I know that my intentions are genuine and pure, but I have to be realistic and accept that what I have done this far has not yielded any tangibles but failed to help me realize my dream and aspirations which motivated me to go political in 1999.
2.4.- Now I have 3 options before me which are as follows;
a) OPTION 1 – Work hard to revamp our 2 year old socialist party, the Front for Economic Emancipation in Zimbabwe (FEEZ) and build it from grassroots so that it becomes a formidable force ahead of the 2028 elections.
b) Option 2 is to join the main opposition ranks under Advocate Nelson Chamisa and serve from that corner.
c) Option 3 is to rejoin the ZANUPF Party.
3) THE DECISION
3.1.- OPTION 1- Considering the context and nature of Zimbabwean politics and obtaining circumstances, there is absolutely no way that I will be able to realize my dream through FEEZ in the near future considering that it took ZANU a solid 17 years from 1963 to 1980 to take power including years of an armed struggle and it has taken 24 years since 1999 for the MDC, the only formidable challenge that ZANUPF has faced since 1980 but which has unfortunately morphed into different forms and identities and still failed to achieve what they set out to achieve. This option means that I have to postpone providing real tangibles and wait for at least 20 or so years before taking over national leadership and implement our alternative policies which I don’t think I am able to do considering that a number of current problems require immediate attention and action
3.2.- OPTION 2 – This option of considering working with Advocate Chamisa in my view will not work in that I am a devoted pan-Africanist and a radical socialist with very strong and uncompromising ideological propositions and I do not think that my ideology and political approach which includes operating through institutionalized frameworks will be compatible with that of Adv Chamisa’s strategic ambiguity and whose ideology he has kept to himself and not publicly pronounced. I also do not get along with his preferred leadership style and modus operandi. Given this reality, I do not see myself being able to work with Adv Chamisa and any attempts to try a relationship might not work in the long run though he is popular and stands a better chance politically than me to become the next Head of State and Government if he is to rightly convert his popularity and numerical superiority.
3.3.- OPTION 3 – Rejoining ZANUPF would seem the most viable and convenient thing to do for someone like me who dearly loved and served this party and played some role in supporting the ascendancy of the new leadership but I personally don’t think that this will work as I don’t foresee myself being able to sacrifice my conscience for convenience and keep my mouth shut and adopt a see-no-evil and hear-no-evil approach. I also do not want a repeat of last time as I disagreed with leadership positions on compensation of former white farmers, the push to amend the presidential age requirement, total scrapping of the indigenization policy among many other issues. I don’t hate ZANUPF nor its leadership but my biggest weakness and challenge if I rejoin ZANUPF is my honesty, candidness and openness as I am not able to pretend and play along and because of this, my membership in ZANUPF will definitely not last as I would risk being expelled for a third time and might end up being nicknamed “MUDZINGWA” or “MUTANDWA”.
3.4.- I have told myself that should I decide to remain active in our politics and push my dream through politics, I risk continuing to lose not just my dream by indefinitely postponing its realization but also permanently losing myself and just become one political “monster” without a conscience, personal fulfilment and inner peace.
Thus I have concluded that though disappointing to some of my political followers and supporters, I need to reconsider the path I am on and deliberately alter my approach.
3.5.- Now therefore, I am glad to announce to all concerned of my conscious decision to quit and take an early retirement from politics. Thus I am totally withdrawing from participating in any political activity privately or publicly, and shall henceforth neither belong nor associate with any political party, grouping or faction as I shall be redirecting my energy, focus and attention towards three apolitical causes which I will mention on the last part of this statement.
3.6.- I do this because I strongly believe that a majority of Zimbabweans across the political divide share in the same dream of a developed, empowered, prosperous and corruption-free Zimbabwe with equal opportunities for all but have been divided on partisan lines and cannot come to work together on matters of mutual interest because of the hate, toxicity and polarization in our politics.
3.7.- I have also came to appreciate that not everything must be politicized or done under the banner of a political party for more often than not, no matter how noble your intentions are, one risks being misinterpreted or misunderstood as many would naturally assume that being a politician, one has no pure intentions but is doing it for political gain which perception would result in quite a number of people mounting massive resistance towards such noble and beneficial initiatives.
3.8.- Therefore let it be noted here and now that I have ceased to represent or push any political cause and shall henceforth deliberately avoid commenting, representing or pursuing in public or private on any political cause.
4) WAYFORWARD
4.1.- I am glad to further advise all interested that in furtherance of my dreams and aspirations which were never about the primitive accumulation of wealth or self-enrichment, neither were they about political power acquisition nor becoming famous or powerful but to get an opportunity to selflessly serve my country and its people in ways that will not only provide hope to the hopeless but in ways that will also provide opportunities to create collective prosperity for all in order to eradicate deep-rooted poverty and corruption in our community and empower all the people especially the weak and the less privileged of our society, whose realization I feel I must not postpone further or delay through continued participation in political games, the following initiatives shall be undertaken;
a) We shall be operationalizing and activating the National Affirmative Action Assembly of Zimbabwe (NAAAZ) which we legally registered to champion a coordinated, effective and objective attack on man-made poverty and economic inequalities by pushing for not just equal and unhindered access to economic resources and opportunities by all Zimbabweans but more importantly ensuring ownership, control and utilization of the same as well as ensuring that Zimbabweans and their respective communities attain maximum benefit from such resources.
b) We shall proceed to operationalize and activate the legally registered Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Citizens Taskforce (ZACCT) to spearhead citizens efforts in objectively and uncompromisingly expose, confront, fight and eradicate corruption and looting in Zimbabwe without any bias or favour.
c) Lastly but not least, in line with my long held desire to reciprocate the invaluable help, support and love I always got from our community and total strangers who not only sacrificed their material resources and time to help me as an orphan at very critical stages of my life but also doing so without asking for anything in return, I shall be coordinating efforts and using my networks and contacts to mobilize and organize resources from friends and well-wishers to unconditionally help out the needy and the less-privileged in our communities and help others carry burdens of life and put smiles on their faces.
4.2.- The above three causes are at the bottom of my heart and are the reason why I initially decided to join politics in 1999 and the same reasons I am leaving politics in 2024 for I am convinced that these can’t be fully realized under any political set-up. I am fully convinced that my principles and values which I am not ready to sacrifice for political expediency stand in my way of becoming a successful politician and because I am not one to sacrifice my principles then the right thing to do would be to step back from the game.
4.3.- In conclusion, I would like to sincerely thank all those who supported me in my political life as you did a lot to build me into the man I am today. I thank you all for me as I continue to cherish everything we did together. I plead with you today to bear with me for taking this route and urge you all to take solace in the fact that the objective of establishing a developed, empowered, prosperous and corruption-free Zimbabwe in our lifetime remains unaltered as I continue with this journey though in a different way
4.4.- Be rest assured that poverty, corruption and economic inequality remain the evils that I have since declared my sworn enemies and there shall be no compromises on that. I have only changed the mode of transport but the destination remains the same though you shall see me in politics no more.
Umnotho eBantwini Khathesi – Upfumi kuVanhu Izvozvi
Inhlalakahle eBantwini Khathesi – Rugare kuVanhu Izvozvi
Amasela Ejele Khathesi – Mbavha Mujeri Izvozvi
Adios Politics!!
I thank you
Signed : GODFREY TSENENGAMU