IT is just over four months when ZANU PF romped to an emphatic victory in the harmonised elections on the basis of their pledge to empower the people through indigenisation and to develop the economy as more employment opportunities were created.
To show this was no idle talk, guided by the Team ZANU PF election manifesto, the revolutionary party’s Politburo came up with an economic blueprint designed to fulfill its objectives.
The approval by the Cabinet of the Zimbabwe Agenda for Sustainable Socio-Economic Transformation (Zim Asset) confirmed that ZANU PF is on a determined mission to transform the economy.
Thus the groundwork has already been laid for the ZANU PF 14th Annual National People’s Conference in Chinhoyi next week. The people’s conference should deliberate knowing fully well that ZANU PF is in complete control of Government with over two thirds majority in the legislature.
Elements bent on sabotaging the party’s efforts to revive the economy have been effectively sidelined by the Zimbabwean electorate.
We are still under illegal Western sanctions and the Chinhoyi conference should accept the challenge that people’s aspirations and expectations still have to be met.
After all, it is these people’s own resources which have to be mobilised to fund Zim Asset’s objective to transform the economy.
Guided by Zim Asset goals, the conference should spur the participants to come up with resolutions that spell out how best the country’s economic problems are going to be solved.
There should be no holds barred as the Chinhoyi conference endeavours to come up with practical suggestions to see that Zim Asset succeeds.
There is no choice. Zimbabwe is a sovereign country with its own unique characteristics.
It is those Zimbabwean characteristics which must be exploited to the full by the participants to come up with solutions that will motivate people to participate in the fulfillment of this economic blueprint
The conference should remind participants of the tortuous path travelled by ZANU PF before unity helped it liberate the country.
Even as we face economic hurdles, victory must be certain through Zim Asset.
But this is only possible if the spirit that bound us together during the liberation struggle prevails.
Regrettably, this seemed to have deserted the revolutionary party on the eve of the Chinhoyi conference.
The ZANU PF provincial elections looked like a red herring thrown to distract the party from its mission to transform the economy. The media was made to feast on the false agenda that succession to the party’s presidency was the major preoccupation of the revolutionary party.
This sounded ridiculous since this was at a time when the buzz word in the revolutionary party should have been ‘Zim Asset’.
ZANU PF has always had provincial elections when they were due and why these particular elections were twisted to point at the succession debate remains a mystery.
From what we know, there is no question of succession at ZANU PF right now.
It looks like all this talk of linking provincial elections to succession is not only misleading, but an unfortunate attempt to destabilise the party.
If what the army generals once spelt out is anything to go by, to assume the country’s leadership and therefore that of ZANU PF is simple: it is a ‘straight jacket’ affair.
One must adhere and uphold the principles, values and agenda of the liberation struggle.
The empowerment programmes that were largely responsible for ZANU PF’s resounding victory in the 31 July harmonised elections need to be defended.
Therefore, the Chinhoyi conference should focus on how to transform the economy, turn it around and change people’s lives.
Not who will be the next president and certainly not to re-configure the prescribed ‘straight jacket’.