The history of our country is such that the security directorate is made up of nationalists (not career soldiers) who find themselves in the security establishment by virtue of the accident of having joined a nationalist (political) movement which was forced to militarise in order to solve a political problem.
It has to be pointed out that the political umbilical cord between the current security leadership and Zanu PF stretches back to the early 1970s.
The relationship is so interlocked and intertwined that the career path of the security top brass naturally leads to joining the political leadership of Zanu PF upon retirement from the security establishment. This is evident from past elevations of retired army officers like retired General Solomon Mujuru, the late Air Marshall Josiah Tungamirai, the late retired general Vitalis Zvinavashe and Nyambuya, among others.
The above scenario replicates itself in all strategic organs of government, signifying Zanu PF’s omnipresence in all key levels and levers of government.
- Chamisa under fire over US$120K donation
- Mavhunga puts DeMbare into Chibuku quarterfinals
- Pension funds bet on Cabora Bassa oilfields
- Councils defy govt fire tender directive
Keep Reading
Accordingly, this is why some of us shout from the mountain top that we have an institutionalised de facto one-party state in Zimbabwe. When the security chiefs go public on their support for Zanu PF, they do so on the basis that they are an integral part of the current ruling elite and also Zanu PF political leaders-in-waiting. They are merely defending their political self-interests and post-retirement careers. In short, the security chiefs see themselves not only as guarantors of Zanu PF tenure in government but also as constituting the next generation of the national political leadership.
The reality of the current political structure is that the people’s struggle for independence has been devalued to mean the Zanu PF struggle, the people’s victory over colonialism to mean the Zanu PF victory. The children of Zimbabwe who constituted the armed wing of the struggle are classified as the children of Zanu PF. In this process, Zanu PF, the political party, is made synonymous with and equated to the state — the people are Zanu PF and Zanu PF is the people! This is a dangerous philosophy in a country striving for multi-party democracy.
The deliberate devaluation of Zimbabwe struggle for independence into a Zanu PF affair and the consequential enhancement of Zanu PF to the level of state breeds the mindset that an attack on Zanu PF is an attack on the state, and that if Zanu PF loses power, that becomes tantamount to the country sliding back to colonial rule. Accordingly, any opposition party that threatens the political hegemony of Zanu PF, ipso facto, challenges the state machinery, which instinctively goes into defensive mode against the intruding political party.
The above stance is wrong. It distorts and rubbishes the real objective of the nationalist struggle against colonial rule. The struggle was for the establishment of a free Zimbabwe on the basis of “adult suffrage” (we used to refer to it as “one man, one vote”). We have other similar struggles in the world such as the French Revolution and the American War of Independence founded on the same noble cause. The difference is that liberation wars in other parts of the world have remained national affairs unlike in our situation where Zanu PF claims the glory and the ownership.
Democracy allows people to ventilate their views openly and freely and prevents pushing opposing and dissenting voices underground. Thus democracy guarantees national stability and security.