South Africa’s ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe pledged the ANC’s support for Zanu-PF for the national elections in Zimbabwe, expected to take place next year, saying the two parties had a common history that could not be wished away and this renders questionable even Zuma’s role as mediator in the lanky unity government.
If what Mantashe said is the true position of the party on Zanu-Pf, how would one expect to see fair or genuine mediation in the Zimbabwean political issue? It is possible we be being treated to a well stage-managed drama, with Zuma pretending to be taking a hardline stance on Mugabe.
Zanu-PF and ANC are parties claiming to form part of the frontline states, which pride themselves as being ruled by former liberation movements and it is perhaps unrealistic to think that either of them would wake up one day drawing swords against the other no matter how brutal the other becomes in running her country’s affairs.
Zuma is ANC to the marrow, and when Mantashe pledged support for Zanu-PF in the impending elections, saying it was payback time for the support Zanu-PF gave the ANC, he epitomised his boss’s true position.
To all and sundry, it sounded like a scene in a dream when Mantashe said the ANC will wait for Zanu-PF to come to it for advice about elections, even saying the party’s teams stood ready to share experiences with Zimbabwe’s former ruling party.
So why the blame on Julias Malema for hero-worshiping Mugabe on his visit to Zimbabwe? The excited Mantashe even went on to urge Zanu-PF to be quick in approaching it for advice while there was still time to change things before elections, parroting the common Zanu-PF anti-imperialist rhetoric.
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Then came the Botswana Democratic Party Executive Secretary, Thabo Masalila, Ian Khama’s representative at the Zanu-PF conference, bringing a paradigm shift to his boss’s usual anti-Mugabe mantra, a shock that possibly baffled scores of delegates, possibly Zanu-PF itself.
BY JEFFREY MOYO
Botswana President Ian Khama, an arch-critic of President Robert Mugabe, has probably succumbed to the saying; “If you can’t beat them join them” and has therefore sought to normalise relations with his Zimbabwean counterpart after he sent a delegation from his party to offer solidarity support to Zanu-PF at its just ended annual conference.
Khama’s emissary, Masalila, heaped praise on Mugabe, urging Zanu-PF members to back the ageing leader, a move that sets a tumultous political stage in the region at a time when the majority of people across Africa and beyond want the geriatric leader out of office as soon as yesterday in order to take the country back to its hey-days.
In a song that Khama has never sung before, through his emissary on the controversial indigenisation and empowerment drive being spearheaded by Zanu-PF, he said the stance taken by Zimbabwe should be emulated by other countries on the continent while in pragmatic terms the implementation of the same policy has left the country profusely bleeding economically, with foreign western investors in jitters, now standing aside, spectating as the country heads for a further economic doom owing to misguided economic policies hatched by the now defunct and fractured Zanu-PF .
Zambian President, Michael Sata through his Patriotic Front secretary general Wynter Kabimba also joined the league and called on Western countries to unconditionally lift sanctions they imposed on Zimbabwe, a song that definitely complemented Zanu-PF’s stance on the west’s position on the country, a slap in the face of the two MDCs, and as if that was not enough, Kabimba revealed Zambia’s ruling Patriotic Front derived its name from Zanu-PF, bragging about the synonymy.
What would partners in the country’s GNU expect given such a scenario of apparent solidarity with the belligerent Zanu- PF manifested by various delegates from Sadc countries at Zanu-PF’s annual conference, with Mozambique’s Frelimo’s secretary for external relations, Dr Xarzanda Selemame Cera, saying her party will back Zanu-PF in the forthcoming elections as the two movements shared a strong bond?
