THE significance of ZANU PF’s victory in the June 10 by-elections is that the possible re-emergence of the MDC-T as a political party and the formation of so-called ‘People First’ remain nothing, but wishful thinking and inconsequential public posturing that will come to naught.
This was supposed to be a moment for both ‘parties’ to show their mettle to an electorate they claim is behind them.
But attendance figures at ZANU PF campaign rallies and the poll itself were a concrete reminder of the immeasurable challenges that lie ahead of them in their inept endeavours to remove ZANU PF from power.
Politics by its very nature is largely a game of numbers no matter the stakes on offer.
It is about taking every opportunity with both hands and making good use of it like what ZANU PF did on June 10.
The MDC-T attempted to mask their seasoned poll failures with their now ill-reputed fib that they wanted what they said were electoral reforms with their old and tired song of a poll boycott.
That ‘strategy’ once again drearily miscarried.
People First, an outfit whose alleged ‘formation’ has for quite some time now been said to be ‘impending’ did themselves no favours by sponsoring some unknown quantities with the hope of shaking ZANU PF.
They are not likely to join the country’s political arena anytime soon because ZANU PF is far from exiting the scene.
Like the MDC-T, People First came out cramped by their stunning lack of political premonition.
What was a supposedly grandiose MDC-T ‘boycott’ and a People First test-run through their funding of independent candidates, which as widely expected failed to find any takers is a reflection of the state of disarray that these two outfits find themselves in.
Year 2018 is around the corner and any opportunity as this one presented by the fast waning Morgan Tsvangirai needed to be grabbed with both hands and made good use of.
It presented an opportunity for ZANU PF to dispel the improper notion that it is a party on the brink of collapse, that it is a party that has split.
It gave ZANU PF an opportunity to forge ahead with its mandate of delivering to the people without restraint from a dolefully disconnected opposition.
Where ZANU PF talked tangibles like housing stands in urban areas and more land to people in rural areas, the MDC-T and People First borrowed the West’s fictitious stories of leadership deficiencies in the country.
But ZANU PF has time and again shown the best of its repertoire.
Easy electoral victories against out of sorts opposition parties has become a permanent feature of the country’s political arena.
There is nothing new here.
And in a year dominated by the saying ‘Gore rino tichadzidza zvakawanda’, we have to constantly remind them of ZANU PF’s famed strategic approach to issues.
Within the MDC-T, there is always this dreary misconception of underestimating ZANU PF each time there is a poll.
Drawn mainly from a pool of activists, most of them who do not even have identity documents, the MDC-T has been a victim of a poorly coordinated mass mobilisation strategy, an area ZANU PF has excelled in since the days of the liberation struggle.
When they (opposition) lose the election, they cry foul.
That false sense of immortality has equally been a key feature of many people in ZANU PF.
In ZANU PF, there is a hopelessly misdirected chain of thinking that the party is made up of individuals.
This eternal self-destruct button means the party normally fails to achieve its full potential.
Prior to the 2014 cleansing process in ZANU PF, the party had nurtured ‘mini gods’, the untouchables, little ‘kings and queens’ who nearly took the party down to the grave.
These little ‘Shefus’ with inflated egos were eating the core of the party.
The party created these monsters who in turn overestimated themselves and their purported importance to the country with near catastrophic consequences.
They were coming after the President.
They are still after him.
This week we were treated with yet another Didymus Mutasa captive moment.
That moment when this man stuck in the past opened his motor mouth, all to a flattering sense of foolish self-fulfillment.
A moment when this tiny little Shefu still coddles himself with that sloppily fostered thinking that he is the Alpha and Omega of ZANU PF; that ZANU PF cannot survive without him, that little fellow who was given a political life by President Robert Mugabe.
“I immediately drove, at speed and alone from my home in Rusape, to State House….to ‘protect’ the president (Mugabe after 2008 elections),” the maverick Didymus Mutasa told his new mouthpiece, The Daily News.
Surely the gods must be crazy!
Didymus Mutasa protecting President Mugabe?
We are in the middle of the year, but this is surely contender for the joke of the year.
More seriously, what the outcome of the June 10 by-election teaches is that while the MDC-T and People First’s foolishness cannot take away ZANU PF’s electoral glory, there should be no room for complacency from the ruling party.
Delivery and more delivery must not just be rhetoric, but visible on the people who have placed their faith in ZANU PF.
Let those with ears listen.