ED’s tale of three provinces
PRESIDENT Emmerson Mnangagwa entered Phelandaba Stadium in Gwanda and White City Stadium in Bulawayo inside two days, completing an awe-inspiring political turnaround, as it was at these two venues that many had written him off as he fought to save the heart and soul of Zanu-PF.
On 12 August last year, President Mnangagwa, then Vice-President, was dramatically airlifted from Gwanda as he came down with a suspected case of poisoning, while 4 November at White City Stadium was the day the final nail in his political coffin was thought to have been hit.
But like Masvingo had sang during the Zanu-PF National People’s Conference held in the province in December 2016 that “Kumagumo kune nyaya”, President Mnangagwa’s political career suffered a momentary “death” and like the parable of the grain of wheat, he was to later emphatically emerge as the first citizen of Zimbabwe.
At the two rallies, President Mnangagwa put an end to that chapter. On 12 August 2017, Cde Mnangagwa had left Phelandaba Stadium a gravely ill man in the suspected poisoning case with his physical life on the tenterhooks.
As former president Robert Mugabe was addressing the sixth edition of the so called “Presidential Youth Interface Rallies”, a helicopter flew over the stadium ferrying a sick Cde Mnangagwa, who was later airlifted to neighbouring South Africa where his doctors worked round the clock to flush out the poisonous substance from his system and ultimately save his life.
Besides the poisoning, Cde Mnangagwa had already been subjected to a barrage of attacks and public humiliation by former First Lady Grace Mugabe, the face of the G40 cabal, whose chief architects included Professor Jonathan Moyo, Mr Saviour Kasukuwere and Mr Patrick Zhuwao.
Their plot was to use the “interface” rallies to discredit Cde Mnangagwa and fellow party cadres with a liberation background, as part of their sinister plot to position Mrs Mugabe to succeed her husband as State president.
Unrestricted by the poisoning incident, the G40 cabal upped the ante in its attack on the person of Cde Mnangagwa until the penultimate “interface” rally at White City Stadium when things took a dramatic twist.
In their usual order of address, former youth affairs secretary Mr Kudzanai Chipanga was the first on the podium, followed by Mrs Mugabe before her husband made the final speech.
Trouble for Mrs Mugabe started when she tried to defend Prof Moyo from the criminal charges he was facing for allegedly siphoning more than $400 000 from the Zimbabwe Manpower Development Fund (Zimdef), attracting grumblings from the youths.
In her imagined sense of invincibility, Mrs Mugabe then accused Cde Mnangagwa of plotting to form a political party to which the youths erupted in anger. They chanted in defiance to the shock of Mrs Mugabe, capping their protest with the song “int’ oyenzayo siyayizonda”.
So incensed was Mr Mugabe that when he went to the podium, he gave the clearest indication that he was sacking Cde Mnangagwa as his deputy the next day.
Little did Mr Mugabe know that the incident at White City and his subsequent sacking of Cde Mnangagwa from the Government would set off a chain of dramatic events that would lead to his own resignation on 21 November and usher in a new dispensation led by the very man that he had fired.
Unlike his predecessor, upon taking office President Mnangagwa insisted that his administration will concentrate more on fixing the country’s economy and less on politicking. True to his word, the President has been touring provinces, reviving projects long abandoned by the past administration and establishing new ones to ensure that all provinces play a role towards the country’s economic turnaround.
On the international scene, the President has sought to mend ties with countries with whom relations had soured prior to his assumption of office in November last year, while also establishing and strengthening new and existing ones. With his “Zimbabwe is open for business” mantra, President Mnangagwa has wooed international investors to the country, with the nation so far attracting more than $16 billion in potential investment.
It is the trajectory that excites party youth Cde Mabutho Moyo, one of those arrested after booing Mrs Mugabe at White City last year, who was eager to hear President Mnangagwa’s address in Bulawayo.
“Naturally to us, this is a huge relief. It is not a secret that White City is where everything was ignited. We were pained by what was happening last year with regards to the direction that not only the party was taking, but the nation also, as it was now in the clutches of criminals,” Cde Moyo says elsewhere in this edition.
“We mobilised ourselves as the youths and vowed that we would not allow the rot to go any further. You will recall that we kept quiet initially as she was addressing, but we erupted when she tried to defend Jonathan Moyo and attack Cde Mnangagwa.”