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OVER the past two weeks, since October 2 when First Lady Amai Grace Mugabe held the first leg of her Meet The People Tour at Chinhoyi Stadium in Mashonaland West, there has been a positive vibe about Zanu-PF in the air. Amai Mugabe dominated the front pages of all major newspapers in Zimbabwe and discussions on social media like Twitter and Facebook and as we report elsewhere in this issue, we even got our highest hits and reader comments on the back of her exploits in the different provinces she visited.

There definitely was something she was doing right as her message countrywide was consistent: unity, industry and enterprise. Amai Mugabe brought refreshing candour that hitherto was anathema in Zanu-PF, which had a sickening tendency of pretending all was well even where the house was clearly on fire.

This is the same mentality that saw Zanu-PF pretend all was well even though the divisive tendencies of a cabal that advocated the bhora musango debacle almost cost the party power in the 2008 harmonised elections, culminating in the dysfunctional inclusive Government that gave Westerners a listening post even in Cabinet.

Because of bhora musango, Zanu-PF lost its parliamentary majority for the first time since independence and were it not for the constitutional requirement of 50 percent plus 1 vote in the presidential contest, Zanu-PF would have been booted out of power and trashed the sacrifices of thousands of patriots who laid down their lives to deliver the nation.

All for what? All because some misguided elements in the party raised Mavambo and divided the presidential vote between President Mugabe and the renegade Simba Makoni.
While it was common knowledge who was behind the bhora musango brigade, no one in Zanu-PF dared say it openly. In fact the party leadership pretended all was well and the same people behind the bhora musango debacle were at it again, trying to extend the life of the inclusive Government, and were only outflanked by the ground-breaking court case that saw the Supreme Court ruling that harmonised elections be held no later than July 31, 2013.

The elections were held, and as we all know Zanu-PF delivered a crushing victory against the MDC-T and while the revolutionary party’s campaign had run like clockwork, there were shocking developments when the ruling party conducted its internal elections that were marred by vote buying, manipulation and rigging.
Once again fingers were pointed at the bhora musango cabal that was reported to be laying the groundwork for this year’s elective Congress.

Then came the Women’s and Youth League conferences where again appalling reports of electoral manipulation including vote buying, manipulation, beatings and abductions emerged.

The same names linked to the bhora musango debacle were again reported to be behind the charade that President Mugabe rapped as filthy and disgusting.
The chaos that characterised last year’s provincial elections and the chaos seen ahead of the Youth Conference and the near disaster that nearly visited the Women’s indaba should not be taken lightly particularly as, through those internal elections, Zanu-PF was choosing the leadership to drive Election 2018. As such anyone who toyed with the preparations, or sabotaged them for narrow political ends should be considered an enemy of the revolution and dealt with accordingly.

To this end we applaud Amai Mugabe for her candour and hope the revolutionary party can finally take decisive steps to deal with the cancer of factionalism lest it tears itself to the dustbins of history.

Zanu-PF must not forget that it is the governing party, and it governs at the pleasure of the people. The moment it fails to deliver on its electoral promises by tolerating divisive factional politics, it heightens the chances for the opposition.

Zanu-PF can’t afford the luxury of having its back on the wall every election time, fighting enemies within and outside the party; the leadership should deal with the bhora musango brigade, and move forward.

The allegations levelled against Vice President Joice Mujuru are very serious, and the nation must not forget that the First Lady — who obviously speaks from a well informed position — has only vocalised what has always been whispered in the public domain.

We hope the brand of politics introduced by Amai Mugabe, that of naming and shaming errant politicians with a call to action against them, will also become part of the revolutionary party’s culture.