The ManicaPost
Tawanda Musariri Post Correspondent—
The month of November of 2016 brought very welcome relief to former Zanu-PF top heavies who were hounded out of the party at the crescendo of purging that drove out and away former vice president of the party, Joice Mujuru.Webster Shamu, long time Government minister and party Political Commissar prior to his suspension; Francis Nhema, a long time minister and former son-in-law of late Vice President Joshua Nkomo and Flora Buka, a former minister of State for Lands and member of parliament got their awaited relief following the party’s supreme body’s decision to uplift their suspensions from the party.
The three were accused of being members of or being sympathetic to the Mujuru cabal which gave birth to the Zimbabwe People First Party led by the deposed Joice Mujuru.
Political speculators were watching the possible moves the deposed party stalwarts were to take given the temptation standing their way from the ZimPF stable. Many ditched former Zanu-PF stalwarts trekked to Mujuru’s party. The majority of the leaders at ZimPF are never there by design but by the fate of expulsion.
This paints a clear picture to the neutral observer that ZimPF is not at all a party but a political cry room for disaffected politicians who find themselves stranded in the political wilderness.
With Zanu-PF conciliatory hand hovering in the faces of once deposed members, it remains to be seen if the politicians quarantined in the ZimPF cry room will not trek back to their beloved party. Political stock watchers remain vigilant as to what will happen not only to Mujuru’s fanatics but to herself should Zanu-PF throw them a lifeline back into the party.
The temptation is way too huge to resist given that Mujuru has to date failed to attract the eye of the donor community. With the leadership of the party largely bankrolling the party from their own pockets, the temptation of accepting readmission into a party with a sound funding structure is too huge to resists. What if Zanu-PF goes for the large kill and lift Mujuru’s expulsion? Well enough of that Hercules of imagination, but what is not possible under the African sun?
But how did Joice Mujuru end up leading a party? Mujuru had never been known for leading anything, to an extent of failing to lead her own husband whom she claimed to be a freelancing husband to several willing women. Where could Joice be if she had not been expelled from Zanu-PF? No meaningful party can be formed and have a sound philosophy from a sour grapes standpoint. Mujuru has nothing to show onto the electorate that her party was built out of a real desire to build as she claims. The fact of the matter is she thought of ‘building’ after falling prey to the harsh conditions of political homelessness.
Joice Mujuru has always built her career out of the shadows. First it was her catapulting into Government at a very tender age while she was not educated at all (her own admissions at Bulawayo) thanks to her husband’s decorated war history. Joice was and is not the only female war veteran. But she is the only officially identified spouse of the late decorated general. Does that ring any meaningful bells? What if the General had expelled her from the marriage? Ndinogarira vana vangu…goes the infamous statement from the lips of troubled women in marriages.
Clearly, Mujuru had the ‘ndinogarira vana vangu’ stance in her marriage. And did she not employ same in all her other engagements? What if Mujuru had walked out of her matrimonial home? Was she going to be the wealthy businesswoman she is today if she had decided not to live in the shadows of her dissatisfying marriage? Joice stays in uncomfortable arrangements so long she gets her bread buttered come tea time. She never calls it quits. She will only be found at the peripheries only if she has been kicked out. Joice is not easily attracted by pull factors. Her inertia is very much resistant to pull factors.
What comes clear in Mujuru’s translucent mentality is that whatever engagement she commits herself to, she is never really in the game. The same applies to her engagements with ZimPF. Her supporters are living with the naivety of believing her to be their messiah yet she is only scanning the environment to sniff if there are any rich pickings for her. It is this attitude within her that will stall the much hyped coalition with Tsvangirai. Already, the mass exodus of senior membership from Biti’s People’s Democratic Party (PDP) has already soiled relations towards a coalition of the two. Not surprisingly, Mujuru has not shown any remorse over the breach of trust with Biti whom she negotiated with during the day and prostituted his lieutenants during the night.
Mujuru’s party is built by a top heavy that was either expelled or served with lengthy suspensions from Zanu-PF. These very members are not immune to Zanu-PF’s clemency. So is she. And for the record, those members will swear by their dead mothers’ graves that they will never rejoin Zanu PF but we will always have the last laugh upon Zanu PF’s stretch of its charismatic hand towards them. There are no permanent enemies in politics. Neither are there any permanent friends. What remains are permanent interests. So long Mujuru’s capitalist interests are promoted by a possible invitation back to Zanu-PF, off she goes. Those who are good at fighting for positions will have a field day at ZimPF. Already the daggers are sharpened even in her very absence at the helm.
How really does Joice want to turn around the political space of Zimbabwe which she failed to do in more than 36 years? What is it that Zanu PF is accused of which Mujuru is not guilty of? Can Mujuru really clean herself of any Zanu-PF stains on her political identity? Will those opposed to the Zanu PF ideology find resonance with what her party claims to offer? How about the suspicious resemblance between ZimPF and Zanu-PF? A woman divorced by Mr Donald is suddenly cohabiting and seriously planning to wed Mr McDonald across the road? How really is that supposed not to raise even the most dormant suspicions?
And the struggle for power? Already Mujuru and Tsvangirai are buoyed by their supporters and both have tasted the sweet scent and nectar of power. How really do such sweet-toothed characters agree to hand over power to the other? How does Joice, who once became the country’s second in command want to donate power to a sick Tsvangirai. Her ego is not sufficient enough to allow such an arrangement which puts her away from the trenches of corruption.
