Zim Now Writer
Exiled former Cabinet minister, Walter Mzembi believes that the political differences and discord in the country can only be resolved by an inclusive critical dialogue aimed at reforming how the ruling Zanu PF operates.
The former Tourism Minister, who fled the country during the 2017 military coup which ousted the late former President Robert Mugabe, argues that to resolve current political turmoil facing Zimbabwe, change must first happen in Zanu PF.
He added that the 2017 military coup, which installed President Emmerson Mnangagwa, was a Zanu PF project but it was celebrated by the opposition.
“There is no change in Zimbabwe, that will not take place in Zanu PF itself first and foremost. November 2017 was change inside Zanu PF itself and those of us who did not agree with the methodology of change are still sitting in exile but it fundamentally altered the design of the State and the political culture,” Mzembi wrote on his X handle.
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“History is very clear on this, if we follow the changes since 1980, change happens in Zanu PF before it affects the length and breadth of the country, this is why the opposition, the clergy and Civil Society supported and celebrated change in Zanu PF occasioned by November 2017. Zanu PF was the collective surname that everyone who fought the struggle agreed to adopt in 1987, no change happens in Zimbabwe which does not visit this collective name. Attempting to dissect, individualise, patronise, and commodify it, will have repercussions even for those who think they are more Zanu PF than others.”
The former top Zanu PF official said he raised these issues ahead “of the journey in our midst and ahead of us, which seeks to unite this country, that unity starts in the liberation ethos of the country, and seeks to accommodate diversity within itself and those opposed to it from outside.”
He said when unity is achieved, one of the results should be the general understanding that those who oppose Zanu PF are not enemies.
“Therefore no one opposed to Zanu PF in its contemporary form is an enemy of the State, doing so is commodifying the State itself which is an ultra higher form than partisanship.
“The vanguard of this philosophy is the people, when we bypass the people by exercising power directly as self, this principle collapses.
“All historical infractions have ultimately been resolved by dialogue and there is no substitute to this. It’s time for statesmanship. Unity is supreme, the cult culture should have gone with Mugabe,” he said.
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