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Tichaona Zindoga Political Editor
The ruling Zanu-PF party is holding its Extraordinary Congress in Harare. It is doing so under changed circumstances.
Very changed.
For the first time in our young lives — both for Zimbabweans as a free people and the majority as a young demography — the iconic Robert Mugabe is not the giant straddling our political processes.

He is no longer the President of the party and its First Secretary, having resigned 24 days ago amid pressure from the revolutionary party that had grown disillusioned with his loss of grip and led a popular, mass display of discontent on November 18.

We are all familiar with that new history that has not dried on our pages, scrolls and national mind.

In fact, we are still living the history.

We are in transition.

Today, Cde Emmerson Mnangagwa will be confirmed as the First Secretary of Zanu-PF, a development that was resolved in those interesting days leading to November 21.

And November 24, of course, the day he took his oath of office as State President!

Today, the political process will be complete, at Zanu-PF level.

But former leader Cde Mugabe will not be here to witness the history — just as he didn’t witness the inauguration of Cde Mnangagwa on November 24 when it seemed everyone else that matters in our politics was there at the giant National Sports Stadium.

Three years ago we were here at the eponymous Robert Mugabe Square (hope the name will be preserved for posterity) in Harare.

Dr Joice Mujuru, the former Vice President and Second Secretary of the revolutionary party did not attend.

She was on her way out after falling out with the party for conspiring to unseat the then President.

The irony of ironies!

Didymus Mutasa and others of her cabal did not attend, too.

For his part Mutasa wrote a letter explaining that he was far away in India, seeking medical attention.

Cde Mnangagwa did not get his crowning moment at the end of that Congress, much to the disappointment of people who anticipated that Cde Mugabe would announce his second secretaries.

The announcement came nearly a week after.

With a surprise, too.

Cde Phelekezela Report Mphoko was made the other second secretary and Vice President.

Many people felt Cde Mnangagwa was the man and would refer to him as the First Vice President.

Having served as a loyal servant and understudy, it was not misplaced.

A saner order in the ruling party would have allowed that.

Only some people were bent on upending and bastardising the system, and it turned out that the person at the centre of this upheaval was Mrs Grace Mugabe.

Paradoxically, at that Congress, she received praise for her role in uprooting the cabal of Joice Mujuru.

But the resolutions are also important for academic and historical reasons.

They include the following observations that the party was:

“Appalled by the actions of the cabal of counter-revolutionaries led by the Vice President and Second Secretary of the Party Cde J.T.R. Mujuru, that plotted to block the 31st July 2013 harmonised elections.

“Dismayed by the cabal’s dirty-minded and reactionary deal with the opposition formations and their foreign sponsors in the treacherous pursuit of the illegal regime change agenda that was epitomised by their ill-fated “bhora musango” pact of 2008, whose diabolic scheme was to humiliate the Party by creating the traitorous conditions of the doomed “inclusive Government”;

“Further appalled that the said cabal of counter-revolutionaries and quislings conspired in machinations to manipulate the voting structures of the Party at the grassroots level, with the objective of illegally grabbing power and effecting regime change in cahoots with the opposition and their foreign sponsors.

“Further outraged that the cabal of these counter-revolutionaries deliberately sabotaged the 6th National Youth Conference and sought in vain to do the same with the 6th National Women’s Conference, through intentional poor organisation and denial of food, accommodation and logistics, while cunningly resorting to vote-buying, intimidation and violence in the disloyal hope that the ensuing chaos would create favourable conditions for them to usurp power and overthrow the constitutionally-elected President of the country, Cde R.G. Mugabe;

“. . . Alarmed by the corrupt use of money to peddle influence and buy votes in the Party;

“Shocked by the rise of the ugly spectre of factionalism which had threatened to undermine the unity and cohesion of the Revolutionary Party;

“Appalled by the fact that the Department of Commissariat has no direction in terms of the correct line of ideology.”

History has a nasty habit of repeating itself.

Mrs Mugabe was this time around at the centre of a counter-revolutionary cabal.

Just three short years on!

How history flew!

Mrs Mugabe, taking advantage of her proximity to her husband and usurping his power, was only stopped by the intervention of the military under the auspices of Operation Restore Legacy.

Her negative energy precipitated her fall.

We won’t be with her today.

Had things gone her way by the end of day she would have been one of the Vice Presidents of the party and Republic, just on the threshold of completing the takeover — the counter-revolution.

Zanu-PF has banned her for life.

Her co-conspirators such as Jonathan Moyo, Saviour Kasukuwere, Patrick Zhuwao and Mphoko have also been banished.

Rightly.

The new era of President Mnangagwa is christened this day.

And he is showing that things could be done differently: this time the Congress is being held effectively on one day — saving the party and country lots of money in the process.

It’s not your usual shindig, with an air of extravagance about it.

The spendthrifts and kleptomaniacs who had surrounded President Mugabe — whose personal interests were unmistakable — wanted it that way.

Just like in Government where we ate elephants after killing mice.

President Mnangagwa has pledged to stop that.

Things could be done differently.

Substantially, President Mnangagwa ought to bring back the party to its original ethos, culture, processes, morality and values.

These were in danger of being spirited away by the G40 cabal, predicated on a system of cleaning the party and Government of war veterans.

De-Zanufication — a term that we usually associated with the opposition — was closer home than we thought.

Or regime change!

We all know that Mrs Mugabe lacked the sophistication to undertake that onerous task, and Jonathan Moyo was the man who was at hand to steer the ruinous agenda.

Jonathan Moyo would have been trusted not to preserve Mrs Mugabe a day longer than she was useful.

De-Zanufication would have been complete, and with it Zanu-PF and then President Mugabe’s legacy!

But Zimbabwe and Zanu-PF can afford to go to sleep now, after the historic events of last month.

And, a special day like this.

An extraordinary day in December!