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Cde Kasukuwere

Yesterday we carried a story in which Zanu-PF national Political Commissar Cde Saviour Kasukuwere went on a familiar social media rant against The Herald.

Nobody would be surprised by such attacks, we are getting used to them.

Cde Kasukuwere, along with Higher Education Minister Professor Jonathan Moyo, has been relentless in his attacks on The Herald and our sister publication, The Sunday Mail, pouring out verbal vitriol as well as instituting lawsuits.

A particular low point was that infamous incident in which Cde Kasukuwere railed at one of our reporters and insulted him using unprintable words.

We thought he would not sink any lower than that, however, it appears he is not done yet. As we reported yesterday, Cde Kasukuwere bizarrely pronounced massive changes that, according to him, would also claim the scalps of leaders at this paper.

He wrote on his Twitter handle: “They (The Herald) have failed to completely understand the seismic political movement underway. @herald will require a new pair of hands soon. It’s on.”

We would be interested to know what this so-called “seismic political movement” is, and we give Cde Kasukuwere the credit that he is seeing what we have not been able to fathom.

Perhaps it has something to do with divination which we are not privy to.

But it is important for us to put it on record that we regard this as a threat, a serious one.

That is not to mention the fact that it constitutes an attack on freedom of expression and media, which as journalists, we are not happy with. Cde Kasukuwere is showing to be an enemy of the media, which he apparently thinks should play lapdog.

Which is the essence of his “fresh pair of hands” that he imagines doing his bidding at The Herald soon.

Well, good luck to him!

What amuses us is that he does appear lost to the irony that it’s the ruling Zanu-PF that may soon require a fresh pair of hands in the position of national Political Commissar.

Cde Kasukuwere, who has been rejected by the majority of the country’s provinces, now has an axe hanging over his head after being found guilty of a raft of accusations.

Interestingly, his other crime was setting up parallel structures and shadow MPs, the very thing he appears to be suggesting by telling the world that The Herald will soon have a new pair of hands.

Looked at holistically, we know that this is part of the successionist politics Cde Kasukuwere and company are pursuing in the ruling party poorly disguised as a defence of President Mugabe.

The current infighting is bad for both the ruling party and the country because of its propensity to divert attention from the real issues to do with the economy, which the majority of people lose sleep over.

We have observed with dismay important Government programmes such as the Special Maize Programme for Import Substitution, popularly referred to as Command Agriculture, being subjected to unnecessary and uncalled for professorial scrutiny simply because some people don’t like the person appointed to superintend over the food security programme.

The current factionalism is disgusting.

We have said we are not interested in the gambol and a show made for personal egos.

There are better things to watch and follow.

That said, we wait to see the kind of seismic movements that Cde Kasukuwere is threatening or plotting and have since blind-sided us.

We hope they are in the best interest of the nation, not a pursuit of personal ambition.

Zimbabweans are watching with keen interest, because the bigger task of an anaemic economy affects them too.