|
April 16, 2008 The possible run-off in the
presidential poll provides a splendid opportunity for Zanu-PF to
recognise and accept as a matter of conscience that there have
been some errors and faults in our actions: An important number
of things we should have done but have not done at the right
times, or not at all.
Here and there even among "responsible"
party cadres, there has been a marked tendency to let things
slide. People ask and wonder where all the fuel being sold at
roadsides is coming from, or how sugar from Hippo Valley gets to
the vendors who sell it at exorbitant prices on the parallel
market.
In the event, Zanu-PF should come up with
a clear and elaborate campaign strategy for the likely re-run in
the presidential poll, and for the greater reason that it should
court its wider national constituency of people who, for one
reason or the other, had abstained from voting because they had
not quite appreciated the danger posed by the stooge opposition
parties.
The first of this campaign strategy is for
the ruling party to engage in what can be termed a "targeted
campaign", where President Mugabe goes out to growth points,
townships and villages to meet people, shake hands with them,
and explain to them, once again, his party's many successes and
his vision for the country.
Concurrently, Zanu-PF should ensure that
the campaign is fronted by fresh faces, disciplined and
articulate, people who are capable of rousing the electorate
from the lethargy that characterised its voting in the first
round.
In other words, Zanu-PF must dispense with
those who, on previous occasions, have lied to the people, as
these are generally perceived as dishonest and thus have lost
credibility among the electorate.
Second, the ruling party must publicly
re-affirm its commitment to discipline by pledging to root out
corruption in society. This is an issue that Zanu-PF must
confront head-long, for the simple reason that while people
accept that our current economic problems are a result of the
illegal sanctions imposed by the UK, US and their Western
partners, they also have been led to believe that the spiralling
prices of goods and services, shortage of foreign currency and
high rents, all derive directly from lack of accountability,
extravagance and rampant corruption in the banking, financial
and transport sectors, as well as in Government, NGOs and
parastatals, and too that it is corruption that is worsening
these problems.
Occasionally, people whisper that
So-and-So is corrupt. And the fact that the electorate tends to
vote with their bellies means that they expect Government to
take stern action against corrupt individuals.
As their day-to-day lives worsen, they get
disappointed, naturally, when they think no action is being
taken against those they perceive are responsible for the
current economic hardships. Already there are unconfirmed
reports that drought relief grain trucks being loaded in Zambia
are vanishing into thin air between departure point and
expectant destination.
Zanu-PF should understand that it is not
only ideas that determine the voting patterns and choices of our
people but the food and material benefits -- indeed the people's
need to live better and in peace, and to have sadza on their
tables, which corruption denies them.
From the point of view of perception,
management of corruption is extremely important, because people
believe that corruption is responsible for their inability to
access sugar, cooking oil, salt, maize-meal, soap, bread, and
other basic commodities. Yet those involved in corrupt
activities are a tiny minority, and in some cases known, and
known chiefly for flaunting their ill-gotten wealth. Why should
our country and revolution be held back by this tiny minority of
fickle opportunists?
Thus, during the campaign it may actually
be necessary to sacrifice one or two of these corrupt
scoundrels, the "big fish", to convince the electorate that we
mean business, the business of cleansing the system of corrupt
individuals.
This time nothing should be left to
chance. Indeed, Zanu-PF must, in the words of Dambudzo Marechera:
"Lynch those who hoard our national dream, lining their pockets
with coins from the povho's hymn." Therefore, the firmness with
which the ruling party proposes to deal with the scourge of
corruption is critical to the outcome of the run-off. There is
also this added dimension that corruption itself is both a cause
and a symptom of indiscipline. And given that a revolution by
its very nature demands discipline as, without it, no revolution
can ever succeed, it is important that this matter is addressed
quickly and with the thoroughness of a comb.
The godfathers of revolutionary action --
Lenin, Mao, Guevara, Castro, and Cabral -- saw to that, always
reminding us that the behaviour and actions of party cadres
determine the outcome of a revolution -- any revolution.
Third, Zanu-PF must seriously commit
itself to cutting public expenditure. For now, the perception
among some people is that there is huge duplication of functions
at ministerial levels, with some pointing out that certain
ministries can be coalesced into one. For instance, the
Agriculture portfolio -- currently made up of four separate
ministries -- namely Lands, Resettlement and Rural Development;
Agricultural Mechanisation; Agriculture; and Water Development
-- can be rolled into one ministry.
Likewise, the Ministry of Public and
Interactive Affairs could very well be incorporated into the
Ministry of Information and Publicity. Similarly, the Ministry
of Rural Housing and Amenities can be collapsed into the
Ministry of Local Government, Public Works and Urban
Development, and for the simple reason that local government by
its very nature entails Government interface with rural people
in developmental projects through district and rural councils.
Also, the Ministry of Finance, and of
Economic Development, can stand as one ministry. The stand-alone
Ministry of Policy Implementation is also seen as objectively
unnecessary on the basis that every ministry crafts and
implements policies, and thus doesn't need to wait for an
external green light to implement that which is part and parcel
of its critical responsibility.
Fourth, Zanu-PF, instead of continuously
harping about the disastrous effects of Western-imposed
sanctions, must instead stand up and tell the people how it
proposes to bust these sanctions, tell them the mechanisms it is
putting in place to generate foreign currency.
As it happens, we have a lot to learn
about sanctions-busting from Cuba, a country which for the past
40 years has not only been under United States sanctions, but
also under siege from the same imperialist power. And from
Lebanon, too, which in the early 1980s was literally occupied by
Israeli and US-led forces, yet succeeded in overcoming sanctions
imposed on it by using its own nationals who were then scattered
throughout the Western world.
Methods of busting sanctions are not
difficult to craft: all that may be required is targeting our
own people in the Diaspora, largely in the UK, with the "things"
that they need and that way it is possible to generate a lot of
foreign currency for our country.
Some of us have suggested that all local
authorities should put aside residential and commercial stands
for sale to our nationals in the Diaspora. We have also
suggested that Government should open up shops in the Diaspora
to sell goods -- foodstuffs, music, newspapers, flags etc -- to
our people there.
Simple things like these would make a huge
difference, as long as the foreign currency generated thereby is
not frittered away by the same band of reactionary bourgeoisie
bent on putting brakes on our revolution!
Sixth, the thesis that has become
identifiable with Nathaniel Manheru is relevant. Writing in The
Herald of March 29 2008, the columnist observes: "Zanu-PF's real
challenge will not be the recovery of this economy under
conditions of continued sanctions; rather, it will be the
forging of a genuine national bourgeoisie with a sufficient
national (read, patriotic) outlook to take charge of the
economy." Manheru laments the "present mismatch of nationalist
politics pretending to ride on the Rhodesia's settler economy",
and concludes by warning that "unless this obscene cohabitation
is challenged, [then] Zimbabwe may very well be a colony again".
Which means what? Which means the ruling
party must have the courage of its conviction to fish and flush
out the many frogs in the party and key Government and
commercial institutions that for far too long have been
masquerading as fish. No more the stratum of people who are
clearly in the service of imperialists, and who have learned to
manipulate the apparatus of the State and commerce to selfish
ends.
This need on the part of Zanu-PF to
separate the grain from the chaff must of necessity extend to
workplaces, themselves sites from which voters are drawn, and
where Zanu-PF-sloganeering chief executives, board chairmen and
directors pretend to be patriotic and revolutionary, and yet
habitually abuse their positions, depriving colleagues of the
right to participate in decision-making, subverting promotion
criteria, and generally abusing employees.
This accusation is not being made in the
naïve hope that these bosses will simply abandon their
practices. Its objective is to call the attention of true
humanists to the fact that those truly committed to the cause of
liberation cannot themselves perpetrate methods of domination in
the name of liberation.
This is a necessary cleansing exercise if
the party is to live up to its tradition as the vanguard of the
revolution.
Admittedly, this development will
inevitably lead to tension and conflict within the party, but it
could also contribute to the formation of a new progressive
cadre and mark the beginning of a new era in Zanu-PF history.
As things stand, it should not be too
difficult for the electorate to see why the MDC is a stooge
political party, bent on reversing the gains of both our
independence and revolution.
The past few days have shown that MDC
intends to hand back land to the former white farmers, and too
that it is eager to hand control of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe
to the Germans. Surely, the prospect of Zimbabwe's re-colonisation
under an MDC government is indeed chilling. It is real. It is
clear for all to see. |
