The ManicaPost
Johannes Chinotimba Post Correspondent—
THE newly elected scallywag member of the House of Assembly for Norton, Mr Temba Mliswa will never cease to amaze those with time to listen to him. The late sungura maestro, Tongai Moyo left a message of counsel for Temba.May his soul rest in peace!
“Pane akakunyepera chinin’ina changu, kuti watove muhombe . . .” the song goes, literally meaning somebody must have deceived you into thinking that you are now a big man in town.
For Mr Mliswa, indeed the 8 927 rented electorate that voted for him in Norton last month gave him that grandiose delusions.
After winning the Norton by-election, Mr Mliswa now sees himself as a big man in a small dormitory town. Thus, he now even wants to try it at a national magnitude.
While addressing a gathering at his victory celebration party in Norton recently, Mr Mliswa announced his hallucinations of joining the forthcoming presidential race.
“If I have won Norton against Zanu-PF, what else will stop me from winning the presidential election in 2018? I can win the presidential seat and I am going for it. I will never lose to Zanu-PF, it died on October 22 when I defeated them here in Norton.
The party’s two vice-presidents came here to address rallies, but I defeated them. Mugabe could not come to Norton during the campaign because he knew that I was going to defeat him as well,” he blabbered.
What Mr Mliswa forgets is that his recent victory had nothing to do with his imagined machismo. Neither does it have anything to do with charisma, magnetism or political prowess and dexterity.
He needs to be reminded that his victory was a product of pooled efforts from all opposition political parties. Even some Zanu-PF cadres, through voter apathy in protest against perceived imposition of the candidate, contributed to Mr Mliswa’s victory. There were a myriad of other factors that contributed to his victory.
Thus, Mr Mliswa is riding on borrowed popularity and he would do well if he is not lost to that reality. His ostentatious mirage is reminiscent of that Biblical donkey which carried Jesus into Jerusalem.
It hoofed it on the carpet amid ululations and it thought all these were being showered on it. If it had dared to return into the great city one day, it would have kissed goodbye to its spine.
But Temba is daring to return to Jerusalem in 2018 without Jesus on his back. Your guess is as good as yours truly, on the consequences of such a happy-go-lucky decision.
After being abetted by the opposition to win the Norton seat, Mr Mliswa is not grateful at all. Instead, he is telling Mr Morgan Tsvangirai, who believes his party played a major role in Mr Mliswa’s victory, to go to hell.
Mr Mliswa is reportedly demanding for the fulfilment of campaign promises made by Cde Ronald Chindedza, the Zanu-PF losing candidate. What is funny and strange is that the controversial legislator is demanding the fulfilment of electoral promises from a losing rival when he had not fulfilled even a single of his promises. That is duplicity at its best, tantamount to a scenario of trying to remove a speck in one’s eye when your own eye has a log.
Norton residents are already peeved over unfulfilled campaign promises. Of course, it is too early to judge him, but the situation on the ground, according to residents, does not reflect that there will be any action from Mr Mliswa who is actually mulling going back to Hurungwe West Constituency in 2018. He is not worried about Norton anymore because it is a bird in the pocket.
Rinonyenga rinohwarara rinozosimudza musoro rawana (literally meaning he who proposes lies low and raises his head when he wins the lady’s heart). His focus is on what he intends to get in 2018. That is the price of investing your vote in a political passerby who is alien to your interests and aspirations.
