It is not the opposition that needs our voice, but Zimbabwe’s suffering people
When we lose focus on the road, we inevitably miss the destination.
Black News 
It is not the opposition that needs our voice, but Zimbabwe’s suffering people
BY Tendai Ruben Mbofana
The current wave of disillusionment sweeping through Zimbabwe’s intellectual and activist circles is a sobering moment of reckoning.
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We are witnessing a trend where long-time commentators and analysts are publicly “throwing in the towel,” declaring that they will no longer write in support of the opposition.
Their frustration is palpable, born from twenty-five years in “the trenches” only to conclude that the movement they backed has become a hoax.
They point to an opposition that has shifted from a structured, organic movement into a personality cult—one that is ideologically empty, structurally fragmented, and strategically adrift.
They lament a leadership that prioritizes “divine” promises and “strategic ambiguity” over pragmatic planning, leaving the movement vulnerable to infiltration and collapse.
While this exhaustion is understandable, the very fact that these thinkers feel the need to “quit” the struggle because the opposition has failed reveals a major, systemic weakness in our national discourse.
For too long, we have confused the fate of political parties with the fate of the people.
The irony is that this misplaced focus may be the primary reason we are failing to hold the regime to account.
By tethering our intellects to the fortunes of a political brand, we have inadvertently left the suffering Zimbabwean citizen without a true, independent voice.
The fundamental error lies in the original decision to “write in support” of a political entity in the first place.
When an advocate or an analyst takes a partisan side, they transform themselves from a watchdog into a cheerleader.
They tie their agency to the success or failure of a politician.
This is a dangerous gamble.
Politics, by its very nature, is a pursuit of power—its attainment and its retention.
Whether in Harare, London, or Pretoria, the primary goal of any politician is control over the state and its resources.
In this cold calculation, the people are often treated merely as a means to an end—a demographic to be courted during election cycles through performative sincerity—rather than the end goal of service.
To base one’s advocacy on the success of an opposition movement is as precarious as a believer who anchors their entire faith in the conduct of a charismatic pastor.
When that pastor is revealed to be a charlatan, the believer’s spiritual world collapses and they question their faith in God.
Similarly, when a political leader goes astray or a movement implodes, the advocate who championed them falls into a deep malaise.
They feel betrayed and eventually quit because the “leader” did not deliver.
But the question we must ask is: why was the focus on the politician to begin with?
Once we turn our attention to the opposition, we lose the plot and betray the people of Zimbabwe, leaving them without hope or a voice.
Our focus must always be on the people, and the distinction is critical.
The struggle for social justice is not about who holds the scepter of power; it is about the lived reality of the citizens who endure the consequences of that power.
It is about the woman who spends her entire day on a sun-scorched pavement selling second-hand clothes just to buy a loaf of bread.
It is about the father who contemplates the ultimate escape of suicide because the dignity of fending for his family has been stripped away by an economy in ruins.
It is about those who spend their days queuing at communal boreholes for a basic right like water.
These are the people who deserve our intellect and our outrage.
They do not need more slogans; they need a relentless, uncompromised voice that speaks truth to power regardless of who is wielding it.
When we prioritize the people, the “state of the opposition” becomes secondary.
If a political movement is weak, it is a tragedy, but it is not an excuse for the intellectual to abandon the citizen.
The crisis in our hospitals—where patients go expecting healing only to find no essential medication or life-saving equipment—does not cease simply because a political movement has lost its way.
The children whose futures are being systematically stolen by an underfunded education system and an economy with no employment prospects cannot wait for a “perfect” politician to emerge from the wreckage.
The rural communities being forced off their ancestral lands by so-called “investors,” watching billions in minerals taken from underneath them without fair compensation, need an advocate who stays in the trenches long after the political rallies have ended.
The frustration of those “quitting” the struggle today is a symptom of misplaced loyalty.
They are mourning a vehicle, whereas we should be mourning the destination.
By tethering advocacy to partisan fortunes, we have left the oppressed to fend for themselves whenever a political party stumbles.
This is the great tragedy: the people are not a means to power, but the politicians have convinced us otherwise.
We must be abundantly clear: the politician’s trade is power.
Our trade must be the defense of the vulnerable.
A writer’s duty is to hold those in authority to account and to encourage the oppressed to stand up against their oppression, not to tell them to wait for a specific individual to save them.
If we are to see a different Zimbabwe, it will not come because we found a better opposition, but because we built a robust, independent culture of accountability that centers on the person, not the party.
We must never again allow our voices to be silenced by the failures of a political organization.
The people’s pain remains real, and their need for a champion is urgent.
The struggle is not a “change project” owned by a politician; it is the daily, lived reality of millions.
Let the politicians fight for their status; we must fight for the people.
- Tendai Ruben Mbofana is a social justice advocate and writer. To directly receive his articles please join his WhatsApp Channel on: https://whatsapp.com/channel/0029VaqprWCIyPtRnKpkHe08
