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Tafadzwa Mugwadi
Zanu PF Information Director

Judging from what we have gone through since 2000, by this time, no one could still be talking of Zanu PF as the colossal phenomenon in Zimbabwean politics.

By this time, no one could still be talking about the story of Zimbabwean people’s revolutionary history and endurance.

The dark forces had timetabled that by now, Zanu PF should have been history, with students of history being examined about the factors that led to the collapse of the Zimbabwe’s revolutionary political architecture.

Former colonial masters who were defeated by our forefathers and foremothers in a protracted liberation struggle employed trojan-horse political movements supported by a rapacious clique of civil society gangsters in efforts to see the back of Zanu PF.

Indeed, lots of white regime change activists authored unpublishable books postulating the demise of Zanu PF, but many such authors have died without publishing any, leaving draft manuscripts because the ruling party has defied all odds staked against it.

The nearer they came close to achieving this was in 2008 when Tsvangirai beat former President   Mugabe by a small margin insufficient, however, to make him president as the election had to be decided by a run-off.

During that period, lots of white people were partying and toasting champagne on the periphery of our borders waiting to come back to Zimbabwe apparently to repossess the land on the back of the opposition’s promise to reverse the land reform.

They had signed a second Rudd Concession with the then MDC.

The opposition had sworn to reverse the land reform as they have always declared and harboured because they were formed to stop the land reform.

Some overzealous remnant white elements had already started chasing black people from farms claiming that their puppet MDC had taken over.

It was a scandal that was soon to cause a rude awakening among Zimbabweans who even up to now do not want even to remember the regrettable mistake of 2008.

The opposition’s electoral fortunes were hinged on the debilitating impact of sanctions imposed by the West in collaboration with and at the behest of an unrepentant opposition MDC which has split into several MDCs and CCCs over years.

Besides crying foul and raising the red flag to the world and to our people that sanctions were an albatross on its governing efforts and capacity to deliver the goods, Zanu PF had little to offer in an environment where inflation was running rampage due to systematic attacks on our currency.

There was no proper formula to defeat sanctions and defy their impact.

Fast forward, an inclusive Government came and the West relaxed their sanctions in an attempt to spruce up the profile of the opposition and hoodwink Zimbabweans that the inclusive Government brought deliverables to the people because of MDC.

However, the election that followed taught them a tough lesson they shall never forget in their life time. They were walloped in 2013 by a people they had planned to con.

The political DNA of all Zimbabweans is Zanu PF and that can never be taken away from them. Even if one had to try a political DNA test with Tinashe Mugabe’s Global DNA, he would still tell you that the probability of an unbreakable symbiotic relationship between ZANU PF and the people of Zimbabwe is 99,9 percent. It is that clear.

2023 beckons

Now, the party leadership, structures and the generality of the people have set their eyes on 2023 general harmonised elections.

The October 26-29, 2022, 7th National People’s Congress of the party gave all of us a signal.

The indisputable sole Presidential candidate of the party, the people and the whole nation is His Excellency Cde Dr E.D Mnangagwa.

Being the first congress resolution, it follows that all party structures, members and supporters in general must begin to take giant mobilisation steps focused on making a big statement of victory for the President and the party.

As President Mnangagwa often says, “Leaving No One and No place behind” in development, the congress also instructed Zanu PF structures to “Leave No One and No Place Behind” as far as mobilisation to join and vote for the party and its declared and endorsed candidate is concerned.

As earlier highlighted, every Zimbabwean has Zanu PF DNA, never mind isolated errant behaviour of hobnobbing with rotten bananas, never mind social media bravado – they know that the ruling party will be the first to beat both the deadline and the touchline.

The congress directed that our structures must continue to use every opportunity to touch base with all of them, preaching the goodness of the party and the vision of its leadership in bars, at boreholes, at Christmas, New Year, or even in church.

We must bear in mind that they are all our people and are all Zanu PF, except that, “kana zvavabata zvinombovawisira kumarara”. They are not beyond redemption.

It is our revolutionary duty to open their minds to remember that there is still a place for them in the home of the people’s revolution.

The President gave us a formula at the congress, that, the party grows by opening up its doors to everyone who wishes to come back to the home of the people’s revolution. We must accept them back home and nurture them to become cadres of virtue who appreciate that “Nyika Inovakwa Nevene Vayo”.

That, however, requires good will and probity on the part of those seeking to return to the Party and that benchmark is sacrosanct.

With or without sanctions

Following imposition of illegal economic sanctions, the opposition campaigned glorifying sanctions saying “chidembo tamba tamba muswe ndakabata” implying that Zanu PF efforts on development will come to nothing because of a screaming economy.

It was opined people will rebel as a result.

Lately, opposition noisy-maker Nelson Chamisa would take pride in calling for the continuation of sanctions saying “ndakainda ku Germany ndikasunga, kuDenmark ndichisunga, kuEngland ndikasunga, sunga one sunga dozen.”

Tendai Biti, not to be outdone, went a step ahead to declare that, “CCC will mobilise more sanctions and ensure this Government never get a single cent.”

Lest we forget. This came from their own mouth and history will never forgive them.

Even as Government pursues engagement and re-engagement with the international community, they have intensified spanner-throwing in an effort to defeat all processes aimed at thawing Zimbabwe’s relations with the globe.

They want us to suffer, to wail, to toil, to soil and to die a hopeless people at the mercy of the sanctioning countries and their puppets.

Yes, we cried, we wailed, we toiled and pleaded for a long time until the Second Republic and President Mnangagwa came with a formula of growth and development that wiped our tears, restored hope, and gave us the national confidence and a “can do spirit” that “yes we can,” with or without sanctions, we will take our nation forward to an upper middle income society by 2030 with our own hands “Living No One and No Place Behind.”

The formula is “Nyika inovakwa navene vayo, ilizwe lakhiwa ggaba nikazi balo”.

Through this philosophy, we have defeated sanctions and shamed those who still hold on to them. Through this philosophy the Second Republic shines like a star compared to other administrations of the last 100 years.

Under President Mnangagwa, Zimbabwe has shown to the world and Africa in particular that with unity of purpose, servant leadership and self-belief, nothing is impossible.

From building and commissioning over several dams, thousands of kilometres of roads dualisation and rehabilitation, ensuring food security through scientific agricultural production, building clinics and hospitals, modern houses, leading a modern industrialisation programme and wooing global investment as in Manhize, Muzarabani Invictus Energy, a 12 billion mining economy to competing for our place in space through our space agency, President Mnangagwa has given all of us in Zanu PF and those waiting to return back to the ruling party a reason to believe in ourselves again.

With or without sanctions, nothing is impossible for the Second Republic.

ED – Emmerson Delivers

My colleagues and I manning communications departments for both Government and party have had our job totally made easier.

Back then, without taking anything away from our founding father the late President Mugabe, it is a fact that one needed to spin, re-spin and over-spin to try to make sense of what was then.

One needed to sky high and surpass Joseph Goebbels’ dizzy heights of propaganda mastery, even as everyday people woke up in queues of virtually everything – fuel, bread, mealie meal, transport, sugar, cooking oil, beer, passports, banks, and even queuing for nothing.

Yes, I mean queuing for nothing because a person would join the queue first and then ask later while on it, the purpose of being in the queue. No one can deny this. I am proud to save during the ED era, because Emmerson Delivers.

The only queue I see under President Mnangagwa is that of people queuing to vote Zanu PF candidates during by-elections.

The only other queue I see is that of people wanting to get their membership party cards as millions across the country are eager to get the membership card.

I must admit that under President Mnangagwa, our job has been made too easy and exciting. The mighty works of the Second Republic speak for themselves. In Shona we say “nyama yakanaka haikokerwi, inozvitaridza yoga.”

One good term deserves another and indeed, the duty of every focused, patriotic and young Zimbabwean is to join the party, register to vote, and be part of the five million plus votes for President Mnangagwa and Zanu PF.

Indeed, let us celebrate the victory together in 2023.

All those who are in party structures, but have not registered to vote from cell to the top organs must know that such is the tendency of counter revolutionaries.

Only through voting can we indeed declare our loyalty to the party, people and nation.

Tafadzwa Mugwadi is Zanu PF Director for Information and Publicity.