Back to Index

The death of Thatcher exposes ZANU-PF hypocrisy
Mathula Lusinga
April 10, 2013

http://hararesunset.wordpress.com/2013/04/10/the-death-of-thatcher-exposes-zanu-pf-hypocrisy/

This week, the world was awakened by the sad news of the death of Baroness Margaret Thatcher, a lady who became probably the first politically recognisable woman leader in the world.

In a society where men are supposed to be the dominant figures of politics, the UK Conservative party took the lead in breaking the barriers. The party set the ball-rolling in leading the entire world to mourn the demise of Baroness Thatcher.

After years of castigating the British society and all the values it stands for, it was with surprise that Zanu PF sent warm condolences to the people of the United Kingdom and the Thatcher family. One would have thought they would rather ignore the whole issue since President Mugabe and Zanu PF have for more than a decade declared the British its Number One enemy for many years they have blamed for Zimbabwe’s land and political woes.

Here we are, Zanu PF has sent warm regards instead. Riding in the world of inconsistency, it is Mugabe that has been on the paramount of attacking the British Society and their leaders describing them as worse than pigs.

It was with shock to read Zanu PF describing Thatcher as a champion of the land issue in Zimbabwe.

Is it confidence or something else?

Zimbabweans have for long been victims of what I call political guesses where the rule of law and justice become only tools of confusing people rather than those of nation building. Take for instance the talk of elections. The issue of the actual dates of the polls has been reduced to a guess game. No one seems to know when the elections are going to take place as the whole population seems to be depending on the whims of President Mugabe who seems to be happy to keep the nation guessing.

In normal societies, one would have expected the date of the forthcoming coming polls to have been announced by now. Most people are being made to argue on the pros and cons of holding elections now while Mugabe plans his game. For me, this scenario defeats the whole purpose of a commitment to a new constitution that was recently endorsed at a referendum. If the nation was committed and excited to have a new constitution, one would have expected a different tune of doing things from political parties but what we have now seems to be an illusion of the leadership whereby Mugabe suffers from age deficiency while Tsvangirai seems to be celebrating delayed victories. Mugabe is trying by all means to play the political game at a long unending table whereby he thrives around strategies of confusing the political playing field by carefully managing events as they come by.

On the other hand, PM Tsvangirai is left to celebrate obvious victories which don’t deserve time for recognition in the political sphere. An example here would be that of the recent challenges in court where the PM is supposed to have challenged Mugabe on election dates, something that I think he should not have wasted time dwelling on. The crux of the matter in Zimbabwe’s politics is dwelled around observing and implementing the Thabo Mbeki crafted Global Political Agreement and the question of what SADC would do if election results were to be contested if held under an environment whereby the GPA was not observed. As it is right now, whatever is discussed is not relevant to the future. We need full implementation of the GPA and enough time for parties to campaign in free and fair conditions. For now, our daily fights are centred on things that don’t matter and all what this does is to create future conflicts.

Please credit www.kubatana.net if you make use of material from this website. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License unless stated otherwise.

TOP