By Davet Muzwidzwa

IN my article of July 11 2013 I discussed the fact that Zimbabwe does not need opposition political parties, but competing political parties.
If one soccer player is injured in the course of a game, play is stopped temporarily to allow that person to recover.
Would spectators enjoy the game when a player writhes in pain on the ground with a broken leg?
Yes a team must score, but not at the expense of fair play.
Yes, political parties must compete, but not at the expense of fair play.
Yes politicians in political parties must compete, but not at the expense of fair play, tolerance, mutual respect, enjoyment of the process and understanding because, “mapere akashaya nyama haadyanani.”
First, it was MDC.
From one party in 1999, by 2008, there were three MDC parties.
These were, MDC-T, MDC (N) and MDC 99.
By 2014, there is another MDC called Renewal Team led by Tendai Biti and Elton Mangoma.
Voters and members of these political disintegrations do not benefit at all. Leaders of these political parties do not benefit from such disintegration either as they fail to generate critical votes to govern and implement their vision. MDC has disintegrated and continues to disintegrate.
Disintegration resulting from infighting is like a cancer, once it gets started, it is very difficult to stop as is visible in MDC formations.
Followers of these MDC formations do not know what to do anymore.
Leaders of the MDC formations attempted many times to tame these disintegrations, but the results were further disintegrations.
ZANU PF has been relatively stable.
However, one cannot forget that Edgar Tekere, Margaret Dongo, Dumiso Dabengwa and Simba Makoni were once ZANU PF.
It was Tekere’s ZUM Party and Margret Dongo’s ZUD Party in the 1990s that paved way for the formation of the MDC in 1999.
It was Dumiso Dabengwa and Simba Makoni and their ‘bhora musango’ project that produced the first opposition parliamentary majority in Zimbabwe.
I say ZANU PF was relatively stable because it managed to recover from this internal cancer as seen by the election results of 2013 where the fractured and disintegrated MDC was trounced.
When we were herding cattle as boys, relations would be very normal among herdboys.
The elder boys would be sending young boys to perform their duties for them. That cattle herding structure was acceptable and survived generations.
However, some notorious herdboys would enjoy bull fighting.
They would drive two bulls towards each other until a fight was ignited.
Some bulls were killed in such bull fights at huge losses to the owners of these cattle.
These notorious herdboys would also cause fights among the young boys.
They would mould artificial mothers’ breasts made of earth on the ground and tell the young boys that the breasts belonged to their real mothers.
They would then ask them to destroy each other’s mother breasts and fights would ensue to save one’s mother’s breasts.
The ones who refuse to play the game were made to herd cattle for weeks until they had the courage to break the breasts of someone’s mother triggering a fight.
The stories coming out of the ZANU PF Youth and Women’s Conferences show the herdboy’s dilemma.
Pane ari kuumbira vana mazamu emadzimai avo kuti varwe.
The existence of the so-called factionalism in ZANU PF is a reflection of the underlying external hand.
It is possible to say that the same hand that proffered MDC to challenge the revolutionary credentials of Zimbabwe is the same hand that is creating mothers’ breasts within ZANU PF itself.
Oliver Mutukudzi said, “Kurwadza kwemusoro, handiro dambudziko, tsvaga chaita musoro uteme.”
ZANU PF should remember that the serious threat to its stability comes from within its rank and file and not from the opposition.
This is called entropy or decay from within.
Edger Tekere, Margaret Dongo, Dumiso Dabengwa and Simba Makoni are symptoms of that entropy.
Unlike the MDC that attempts renewal by breaking up, ZANU PF should seek to disinfect the wounds so that the wounds can heal.
It is therefore important for ZANU PF leaders to take heed, that, a revolution is not a project, but a programme.
It is waged forever because the exploiter’s desire to exploit will never end. Likewise, the exploited’s vigilance must never tire because your great grandchildren will forget who the enemy was in the first place and may end up turning their arrows to their brethren failing to see the camouflaged enemy.
You are now performing covert operations on each other, have you lost the enemy brief?
Have you forgotten that this enemy changes colour all the time.
Constructive renewal is the way to go.
The biggest question to the ZANU PF leadership is this; what lessons did you learn from MDC?
If you have not learnt that disintegration causes political parties to lose elections, then some of you have lost their revolutionary steam.