Mnangagwa shrinking democratic space
President Emmerson Mnangagwa says that Nelson Chamisa and his party will never rule this country: “Never…! never…! ever…!” How would that be possible in the event that they won at the polls? In response Chamisa states that the triple-C party (and its supporters, of course) will never accept a rigged election. Is Chamisa wrong? No, he is not. Mnangagwa then construes Chamisa’s statement as courting violence, which is not true by any stretch of the imagination.
Mnangagwa quickly or conveniently forgets that it was his utterance, which elicited the kind of response that Chamisa gave. It’s podium politics. The late Robert Mugabe used to say the same thing about Joshua Nkomo. Amai Grace Mugabe in her hay days used to taunt the Lacoste faction and indeed anyone who opposed her husband by saying “VaMugabe vachatonga” even when he is in a wheelchair.
Former Rhodesian prime minister Ian Douglas Smith made his (in-) famous “Never in a thousand years” statement. These are what we call hyperbolic statements. In the Latin language they are called ad captandum valgus language. It is uttered namely for consumption by the mobile valgus (the movable or easily movable common people aka the excitable or changeable multitude).
Zimbabweans are like that. They are not politically emancipated no matter their level of education. The few who are politically emancipated are just a drop in the ocean and some of them shy away from even social commentary. Forty-two years from 1980 and we are still lapping up the putrid garbage that so-and-so will never rule this country, and we still claim that Zimbabwe is a democratic country. In a democratic country a leader, especially one who is at the helm of government, who utters such a language, would not last in office. That is for sure.
Zimbabweans are a nation in default. There is no- one to run the affairs of this country. The post- independence generation who benefited from free education now call themselves diasporans. They are engineers, medical practitioner’s economists, lawyers, religious ministers including televangelists. They even boast that they and their families have enough food on the table. Some of them are said to be Chamisa’s “advisors”.
Yes, they remit money back home. And yet money alone cannot develop a nation. Their advice, whatever that means, is abstract and worthless, and meaningless. Human capital, unlike monetary capital by way of remittances, which have only a marginal component of development consumption, is more important. Zimbabweans who are in the diaspora are individuals and not companies and/or organisations.
All that they can do once in a while is to organise amawoso/ braai parties to “celebrate” some event or occasion. Back home Zanu PF is having a field day appropriating everything and everybody including the vulnerable and gullible youths. Those in the Diaspora, meanwhile, want to vote as diasporans. They don’t really understand the meaning of freedom and fundamental human rights, I suppose.
Back home though, Mnangagwa is denying Zimbabweans political freedom. This is a very archaic practice and originated from the antediluvian era when the oligarchs were ruling. We are in the postmodern era where political space is an endemic habitat for everybody.
Everyone knows about democracy nowadays. Mnangagwa by denying other parties and organisations space he is potentially driving them underground where there is “space”. And Mnangagwa is behaving as if he is a political novice when in fact he is a veteran even by world standards.