IT is interesting that President Emmerson Mnangagwa is concerned about the poor performance of the region’s former liberation movements in recent general elections. He claimed that revolutionary parties in the Sadc region were under attack.
This came after the African National Congress (ANC) of South Africa recently lost its parliamentary majority for the first time since the advent of democracy in 1994, where it polled 40,18% in the elections, while the main opposition Democratic Alliance (DA) won 21,81% and the six-month-old uMkonto Wesizwe shocked many as it became the country’s third largest political party after garnering 14,58%.
The ANC performance has forced South African President Cyril Ramaphosa to seek to form a government of national unity with the DA and other smaller parties.
“As I call upon the central committee and the party at large to be aware of the realities and onslaughts affecting former liberation movements and the African region as a whole, these call for a greater solidarity and exchanges among former liberation movements as well as like-minded Global South and East,” Mnangagwa said.
“Revolutionary movements in the region and across Africa, we are under attack. It is this unity of purpose and long-standing mantra that states that ‘an injury to one is an injury to all’ which saw us dismantle colonial bondage, apartheid and racist white supremacy. Our collective independence, freedom, sovereignty, peace and security should be jealously guarded and defended.”
The challenge we are having as southern Africa, particularly Zimbabwe, is being stuck with “former liberation movement” talk.
Everything that happens has to have some “liberation war” talk before anything can move.
That is the elephant in the room.
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We all agree that the war of liberation was waged so that we could be free.
But that independence came more than 40 years ago, we cannot be engrossed in the same talk while overlooking developmental issues.
The economy is in the doldrums, unemployment is very high, the number of children dropping out of school is alarming, while hunger and poverty worsened by an El Niño-induced drought are knocking on the doors of half of the country’s population.
Zimbabwe needs to move on. The Sadc region needs to move, so does Africa.
The biggest threat to Sadc’s problems is an inept, despotic and corrupt leadership.
South Africans have done it, they have shown the ANC that they can do away with it if it does not address their concerns.
In Malawi, the Malawi Congress Party is at the helm in the 60-year-old nation, which has seen other parties rule.
In Zambia, Hakainde Hichilema’s former opposition United Party for National Development is in power, having taken over from the liberation movement Patriotic Front.
Zambians had become tired of the former ruling party, the Patriotic Front, and kicked it out of power.
For Zimbabwe, election results in other southern African countries are ominous.
One way or the other, the time of reckoning will come for the inept leadership of the ruling Zanu PF.
The shocking levels of public corruption, nepotism, tribalism, disrespect for human rights, a tanking economy are among a cocktail of other challenges being faced by the citizens.
If anything, Zimbabwe and the Sadc region need development-focused leaders.
They need fresh brains that have capacity to take charge and provide solutions to the challenges being faced by the region, not constantly talk about “liberation movements” that seem stuck in the forgotten past.
