THE ED2030 brigade took its campaign to Bulawayo on National Youth Day on Friday last week where supporters sang “2030 ndeya Emmerson”, a song which dovetails with plan for President Emmerson Mnangagwa to extend his stay in office to 2030.
This will be two years after the end of his second and final term in 2028.
That the 2030 brigade has taken its shameless plan to public events exposes its desperation.
We have also seen the same rent-a-mob singing at the National Heroes Acre during the burial of heroes.
The ill-advised 2030 agenda is gaining currency despite the intended beneficiary, Mnangagwa, saying he will "persuade those that want to persuade him” to stay on.
There is new regalia emblazoned “Persuaders 4ED”, signalling a well-oiled machinery to attain a constitutional amendment regardless of the consequences.
These contradictions in the governing party are bad for the tanking economy.
Formal retailers could be breathing their last, weighed down by a punishing tax regime, policies and the growing informalisation that has eaten the formal sector’s lunch.
- A defining moment for Mnangagwa
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Several companies have entered into corporate rescue to have breathing space as they move to ward off creditors.
The economy is in bad shape.
The opposition, seen as a government-in-waiting, is supposed to keep the ruling party on its toes.
However, it has become a bystander as crises play out. The Citizen Coalition for Change (CCC) party has never been the same since its founder Nelson Chamisa quit the party and Sengezo Tshabangu got the carte blanche to recall elected lawmakers.
The same Tshabangu recently hectored CCC lawmakers to Mnangagwa’s farm where he appeared to endorse the plan to prolong Mnangagwa’s stay, despite claims to the contrary some days later.
The collapsed healthcare system laid bare by the recent fatal accident in Beitbridge, the deteriorating economic environment that is pushing formal retailers to the margins, and a failure to tame the country's number one enemy, corruption, have all manifested because all hands are on the wrong deck — the 2030 push.
The crises appear to have been forgotten as the 2030 chorus grows loud.
What the 2030 agenda has done is to put the country in perpetual election mode, 18 months after the controversial August 2023 elections.
The economy and social sectors have been forgotten as the 2030 cheerleaders plunge headlong with their plan.
To them, their plan must sail through, never mind the cost.
They are living up to what theorist Tomas Sowell once said about politicians.
No one will really understand politics until they understand that politicians are not trying to solve our problems, he wrote.
“They are trying to solve their own problems — of which getting elected and re-elected are number one and number two. Whatever is number three is far behind,” Sowell said.
By being the governing party, Zanu PF must put its house in order. This entails censuring those who are pushing the divisive 2030 agenda.
The ball is in Mnangagwa’s court to calm loyalists using his dual role of State president and leader of the ruling party. He has spoken four times saying he is not interested in prolonging his stay. It is clear loyalists need more than statements.
