By Saul Gwakuba Ndlovu

ZIMBABWE’s 38th independence celebrations were visibly and audibly different from similar occasions held throughout the country since 1982, that is two years after the attainment of Zimbabwe’s national sovereignty.
Between 1982 and 1987 (inclusive), the country’s central and western regions were frozen by fear caused by the Gukurahundi campaign that was deliberately launched by the then Prime Minister, Robert Mugabe, during what he later described as ‘a moment of madness’.
That five-year period was characterised by renewable regional states of emergency and local curfews in a number of administrative localities.
The killing of thousands of unarmed people created fear, alarm and despondency not only in the area where the Gukurahundi military operations were being carried out, but even in other parts of Zimbabwe whose normal-minded people were whispering in fear: “What is going on and why?”
After the signing of the ZANU PF and PF ZAPU Unity Accord by Mugabe and Joshua Nkomo on December 22 1987, many people in the affected regions were relatively relieved but still harboured a great deal of fear and abhorrence of Mugabe’s leadership.
They yearned for new leadership and, in 1999, some of them fell for the MDC, a political organisation publicly demonised by Mugabe’s authoritarian leadership.
Zimbabwe’s independence celebrations held during that period were inevitably one-party occasions featuring solely ZANU PF membership, party attire and party slogans to the exclusion of all else.
That was how Mugabe wanted it to be and that was how it was until November 2017 when he was pressurised by intra-ZANU PF circumstances virtually engineered by his wife, Grace, to step down.
In came Emmerson Dambudzo Mnangagwa, his former deputy, ushering in what is referred to as ‘a new dispensation’ in which political tolerance is promoted. The multiplicity of Zimbabwe’s political parties, now estimated to be 117, should be attributed to this factor, among others, many of which are economic.
Mugabe’s political leadership had a centrifugal effect on the Zimbabwean socio-economic landscape in that it created an explosive situation that resulted in people deserting Zimbabwe for a more accommodating environment abroad.
The major characteristic of that centrifugal situation was intra-ZANU PF hostility that led to the emergence of factions within that organisation.
It generated, in addition, inter-party hostility that caused violent clashes between the MDC-T on one side and ZANU PF on the other.
With those two major political parties standing eyeball-to-eyeball, Zimbabwe became unstable and unfavourable for investment, a fact reflected by the Mugabe administration’s 51-49 percent investment policy.
Mugabe’s centrifugal kind of leadership was one of those factors that led to a flight of capital from Zimbabwe, an unfortunate development now generally referred to as ‘externalisation of funds’.
The new dispensation is obviously centripetal in that it emphasizes the Zimbabweanship rather than the partisanship of each national, a nation-consolidating approach which was reflected by Zimbabweans of various political parties who attended the recent independence celebrations in various parts of the country.
The major advantage of a centripetal type of political leadership is that it generates national security and harmony whereas the centrifugal kind creates fear and tension.
Freedom of association and freedom of speech thrive under a centripetal leadership — it being understood that freedom of speech is a product of freedom of thought.
Free-thinkers are assets to a democratic dispensation such as the post-November 2017 Zimbabwean era.
Social progress, economic development, cultural transformation and political emancipation are achieved in and by communities where there is a cross-fertilisation of ideas proffered by free-thinkers.
During the recent independence celebrations, Zimbabweans acted and talked freely and thus openly enjoyed social and political values for which the armed liberation struggle was launched — that is to say the freedom of association and that of expression.
With the passage of each day, the country is getting closer to the 2018 harmonised elections with bated breath.
Zimbabwe and the entire world is waiting to see how free, fair and credible those elections will be.
It was very strange that Zimbabwean voters were coerced to vote for a particular party or individuals at some stages of the country’s history, considering that the country had won the vote by the blood and lives of patriots collectively called ‘freedom fighters’.
How does coercing people to support a particular political party or a particular political leader protect or promote such people’s freedom?
In fact, it denied the people the very freedom for which the masses bought and sacrificed by their very all.
It was the very opposite of the people’s aspirations and must be condemned without any reservation.
It is on that basis that Zimbabweans and all democratic nations are urged to support President Mnangagwa’s repeated call for ‘free, fair and credible elections’.
Gone is the autocratic era of the Mugabe regime; the dispensation when human rights are respected deserves our support.
Saul Gwakuba Ndlovu is a retired, Bulawayo-based journalist. He can be contacted on cell
0734 328 136 or through email: sgwakuba@gmail.com