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Tichaona Zindoga My Turn
There is a story that is told of a man that caught his wife red-handed in a heated act with another man. The man was naturally livid, if not murderous: one can imagine the kind of passions excited in such situations.However, the woman was quick to think. “Being the fool that you are,” she challenged him, “raise alarm or go on and make a scene!” “If you choose any rash action and wake up the village, tomorrow it’s you who will be ashamed as people laugh at you saying you married a whore!”

That was enough to cool the man’s boiling anger. He gave up. The little pride left told him that nobody else should know of this ignominy: the case would be between him, his unfaithful wife and the intruder.

And the walls.
So, no blood was spilled on this dark night and life continued in the village. Not that the great sun would be hidden forever. The village is known to keep these public secrets that are sometimes first told by the walls that have reputed ears and eyes. The grass and trees also see.

Quietly.
But the good thing is that there is peace, at least unease peace.

This tale is relevant to Zimbabwe’s politics today.

Let us but digress a bit.

Last week, the Zanu-PF Youth League hosted the first of what is dubbed the “Presidential Youth Interface Rallies” in which President Mugabe will be meeting youths across Zimbabwe.

It began in Marondera, Mashonaland East Province.

Next up is Manicaland and Masvingo follows later.

Judging by what took place in Mashonaland East, as President Mugabe met youths, the meetings are going to be a show of force and build momentum that is going to take us right into 2018, the year of elections.

Those that are familiar with the workings of President Mugabe and his party are noting that the campaign for 2018 has begun in earnest.

The party and its leader are doing it in emphatic fashion, showing the most important aspect, namely that Zanu-PF is a mass mobilising machine.

Apart from the sheer organising capacity of drawing such numbers, the party is also able to demonstrate at any given time that it has structures that work.

It has organic machinery that can be relied upon.

It has enthusiastic supporters as well.

Not only that, it has people that will risk the anger of the gods and God in trying to show their loyalty to President Mugabe and the party and cause.

Which brings us closer to home.

There is a guy called Kudzanayi Chipanga.

He is the Zanu-PF Youth League leader.

On the occasion of the meeting in Marondera, he outdid himself — and many others before him — in praising President Mugabe, leader of Zanu-PF and President of the Republic.

Chipanga likened President Mugabe to the Archangel Gabriel.

He said President Mugabe was God’s advisor.

He was superlative.

He said: “I promise you, people, that when we go to Heaven, don’t be surprised to see Robert Gabriel Mugabe standing beside God vetting people into heaven.”

Such claims are not unknown in politics.

But Kudzi Chipanga is being touted as having outdone all and sundry.

The reaction to this episode is quite telling.

The opposition in Zimbabwe has been deriding Chipanga for his “blasphemous” praise of President Mugabe and making fun of the party’s endorsement of President Mugabe as the candidate for the 2018 elections.

Apparently, this is all that the opposition saw at Rudhaka.

The opposition selectively chooses to ridicule Chipanga for his alleged blasphemous praise of a 94-year old candidate for the next election.

Now, what does this tell us about the opposition itself?

No doubt, the opposition in Zimbabwe has chosen to act the unwitting husband who catches the wife red-handed and raises alarm.

Foolishly, he doesn’t know that on the morrow people will be laughing at him!

(For, many couples have been known to kiss and make up later.)

We need to explore this analogy further.

The opposition, comprising Morgan Tsvangirai’s MDC-T, Tendai Biti’s People’s Democratic Party, Joice Mujuru’s National People’s Party, Welshman Ncube’s MDC, among others, loudly mock Zanu-PF for being led by a 94-year-old.

This is an indictment on the opposition.For all its collective youth and efficacy, why can it not defeat the nonagenarian?

The opposition cannot defeat President Mugabe.

It is for the same reason that they not only are mooting a “grand coalition” but also at the same time wishing President Mugabe not to be part of the contest.

We thought the opposition would have welcomed a weak, old opponent!

The opposite is true.

It just tells us how weak Zimbabwean opposition is.

It is petty.

It is childish.

It could not see the bigger dynamics, well far beyond the court jests of Chipanga.

That should be tragic for opposition supporters and the opposition handlers.

This is a hopeless bunch.

Someone says the opposition’s undoing is failure to define its enemy.

That could be straight from the famous Sun Tzu.

The opposition in Zimbabwe does not only know how to define the enemy, Zanu-PF, which is a creature bigger and complex than the opposition’s usual inane and inept descriptions of the ruling party.

Additionally, the opposition does not seem to know itself and what it stands for, being a band of disparate groups that was at one point brought together by the mantra “Mugabe must go”.

He has not gone anywhere.

He is not going anywhere and this has led to a paralysis and sterility in the opposition.

It is that bad.

Our opposition is clueless.

And when they go to town over Kudzi Chipanga and take eyes off the bigger ball, it only confirms just how imbecilic they are.

The Zanu-PF juggernaut is in motion.

Academics, think-tanks and researchers are already sensing a Zanu-PF victory in 2018.

The opposition is busy chasing shadows.

It is at sixes and sevens.

Just consider this.

The main opposition party is not sure whether or not it wants to participate in the next elections.

It is also not sure how to frame its narratives.

A latest example is the party’s reaction to the awarding of a tender to a company to supply biometric voter registration kits, itself an important development.

This is how the party reacted to the recent news:

“MDC is aware that the Zanu-PF-appointed State Procurement Board directly influenced ZEC to award this tender to the Chinese company.

“It does not escape us that the beleaguered and faction-ridden Zanu-PF party has strong bonds of friendship with the Communist Party of China (CPC).

“Notwithstanding this biased and politically-inspired award of the BVR kits supply contract to Laxton Group Limited, the MDC is calling upon Zimbabweans, living in the country and in the Diaspora, to register to vote in their millions when the voter registration exercise begins in due course.

“We derive comfort from the fact that our technical experts are firmly on the ground and that they are keeping an eagle’s eye on all the shenanigans that are being created by ZEC as it seeks to steal the people’s vote on behalf of the thoroughly discredited and unpopular Zanu-PF regime.

“Our technical experts are convinced that the German company, Demalog Identification Systems, are technically superior and better experienced in the supply of BVR kits compared to the Chinese company, Laxton Group Limited . . .”

Somebody make that for us please?

Poor is the opposition supporter amid this confusion.

You can apply other basic tests.

If you go by Sun Tzu, you clearly see that the MDC-T does not seem to know who its enemy is, whether it is fighting Zanu-PF or the Chinese; or whether it is fighting an ideological war or a technical issue.

And in this impenetrable statement, a voter is left unsure whether to go and vote in an allegedly rigged system; or not, because there are some experts that have been deployed to unrig the system.

This is the opposition in Zimbabwe in June 2017.

And when the opposition goes to town deriding Kudzi Chipanga, one cannot help but see who the real fool is!