YOUR Excellency, from where I stand, your threats of ruthless consequences for alleged disloyalty to Zanu PF and to your leadership were not lordly. The winners and losers of your party primary elections did not deserve the warning.
Given that politics is a contestation of ideas, your threats to ruthlessly crush rebels were unbefitting of a soft-as-wool and listening President.
Parliament is an independent legislative body in which legislators exercise their minds and vote with their conscience, oftentimes at variance with their party policies.
As I see it, the forum and setting from which you chastised the cadres who contested in the intraparty elections was inappropriate. It was the least ideal strategy for you to assert authority by rebuking them in the full glare of the party rank and file.
After all, the elections were bound to be disputable. Methinks the electoral processes were markedly disreputable, prone to manipulation.
They were characterised by all manner of poor systems and procedures and electoral chicanery, hence, the re-run.
Essentially, a leader who derives legitimacy from followers does not rave about ruthless consequences as you recently did at Mubaira Growth Point in Mhondoro, Mashonaland West province.
It was a cold and distant leadership strategy for you to chastise them publicly thus.
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It was heartless to parade them before all and sundry. It was in total disregard of the dignity inherent in fellow humans.
Critical thinker, pastor-cum-author Craig Groeshel decried such haughty leadership style saying: “We do not need a title to lead. We just need to care. People would rather follow a leader with a heart than a leader with a title.”
Your Excellency, threatening to ruthlessly crush rebellious losing and winning candidates in the Zanu PF primary elections for being disloyal to the party and your leadership was altogether a futile endeavour at consolidating power.
From my observation, you were not necessarily ruffled by prospects of disloyalty to the party and your leadership per se.
Methinks the defeat of your political bedfellows, among them Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs minister Ziyambi Ziyambi left you hurting.
Ziyambi built himself a reputation for bulldozing constitutional amendments at your every whim. His defeat is inevitably a thorn in your flesh.
Ever since Ziyambi wielded the hatchet to amend the tenure of the Chief Justice, he never ceased mopping sweat from his brow.
His thumping amounts to your indictment, so as those of your other several abettors. They caused you to lose restraint, and possibly a hold on power.
Methinks inherent in their defeats are well-intentioned considerations of backing an alternative presidential candidate.
Although the ruling party’s national congress endorsed you unopposed, those in the know have it that a day is very long in politics. As I see it, your stranglehold on the party is no longer firm.
Your Excellency, with your inner circle having been routed in internal elections, your influence is bound to weaken. It is to your disadvantage that they were defeated.
Your threats of ruthless consequences implied reliance on a heavy brigade.
Yet, your communication staffer Ndavaningi Mangwana nonetheless heaped praises on you.
He seemed the only stranger who was unaware of the money laundering and gold smuggling exposé. He claimed that you were taking Zimbabwe to the promised land.
His exhaltation: “He is our leader. He always leads from the front. He works harder than everyone else out there. He is a stickler of time. His vision is taking the country to the promised land,” was more of flattery than truth.
It is my earnest prayer that you dismiss his ingratiation with the contempt it deserves.
Frankly, I don’t think Mangwana had the privilege to draw wisdom from Fyodor Dostoyevsky, who presaged: “Nothing in this world is harder than speaking the truth, nothing is easier than flattery.”
Your Excellency, whither now? As I see it, you are in the crucible. Your prolonged silence and inaction over the Gold Mafia exposé are indications of being overwhelmed.
Ordinarily, citizenry look up to the President for strategic leadership in times of uncertainty.
However, both government and Zanu PF are yet to offer credible, coherent and convincing responses to allegations of illicit money and gold dealings.
Strangely, Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services minister Monica Mutsvangwa and her husband, Zanu PF spokesperson Christopher Mutsvangwa offered conflicting statements, yet the former speaks for government with the latter being the mouthpiece of the governing party.
As if they do not dine on the same table, she said government takes the allegations raised in the documentary seriously, and will launch investigations.
On the other side, her husband differed, maintaining that the hullabaloo about gold is plain “codswallop and balderdash”.
As I see it, your presidential last rites ought be the emulation of the former New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Kate Ardern.
She recently resigned asserting that it was not because the position was difficult, but rather because she thought others could do it better.
Cyprian Muketiwa Ndawana is a public-speaking coach, motivational speaker, speechwriter and newspaper columnist. He writes here in his personal capacity.
