Two years to do what? – outspoken retired army general asks, says Mnangagwa does not trust citizens to freely choose him

OUTSPOKEN former army general (Rtd) Lieutenant General Winston Sigauke Mapuranga has launched a renewed attack on President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s attempts to amend the Zimbabwean Constitution to ensure he gets an extra two years of his second and final term.

Mapuranga has stood out as one of the few, former and current, senior government officials against the idea of extending Mnangagwa’s stay against constitutional dictates.

Zanu PF, which masterminded Constitutional Amendment Bill No. 3 and has been campaigning for its enactment without having to go through a referendum, is a party divided.

Most within the ruling party are silent, waiting on factional fights to indicate a clear winner before choosing a side.

Those in open support of what civic society and opposition politicians have described as illegal, are either being used, set to benefit or part of what Vice President Constantino Chiwenga said were ‘Zvigananda’, a derogatory term referring to economic looters.

“Two years President Mnangagwa, what exactly is the plan?” said Mapuranga.

“I have spent decades in uniform defending a Zimbabwe I believed in. I have watched governments rise and I have watched them rot. I have held my tongue when discretion demanded it. I am holding it no longer.

“Two years. That is the extension President Emmerson Dambudzo Mnangagwa and the architects of Constitutional Amendment Bill No. 3 are asking this nation to hand over not in trust, not in partnership, but in blind submission. Two years to do what, precisely? That is the question no one in the corridors of power wants to answer directly. I intend to ask it anyway.”

Public Hearings on Constitutional Amendment Bill No. 3 which began on Monday have been chaotic, with incidences of intimidation, violence, manipulation and choreography being raised.

Added Mapuranga: “We are being asked to amend a constitutional framework the supreme law of this republic not because the constitution is broken, but because a political timetable is inconvenient.

“That is not governance. That is the behaviour of a man who does not trust the people to freely choose him. And if a leader cannot trust the people, why should the people trust the leader?”

Mapuranga’s statement, shared on his social media platforms, fell short of declaring that Mnangagwa and his government should have resigned long back as a result of their failure.

He described the state of Zimbabwe’s roads, an absence of potable water and how ministers were forcing people to celebrate mediocrity.

“In Zimbabwe, we have lowered the bar so far that survival is mistaken for success.

“In a normal country, a collapsed power grid or a dry tap is a resignation-level event. In Zimbabwe, it is dismissed as a legacy issue or a shadow cast by sanctions.

“In any serious republic in South Korea, in Botswana, in Rwanda a government official who presided over a constituency without functioning sewers for five consecutive years would face parliamentary censure at minimum and electoral annihilation at best. In Zimbabwe, he is promoted. He is given a ministerial vehicle and a new portfolio. And we wonder why nothing changes.

“We have normalised brokenness. We have built a political culture so accommodating of failure that the citizenry has been socially conditioned to celebrate the absence of catastrophe as though it were prosperity. The lights were on last night? Wonderful. Praise the President. The tap had water this morning? What a blessing. Four decades of mismanagement sanitised into a daily miracle.”

Mnangagwa took power from late President Robert Mugabe through a military assisted coup in 2017, promising change, an end to corruption and development.

Very little has changed; Zimbabwe has maintained its position as one of the most corrupt countries in the world and development has been haphazard and of little impact.

Attempts to extend his second term have divided the ruling party. Chiwenga has reportedly been clear about the implications if Mnangagwa goes ahead with his plans.

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