Unity is more than just leaders coming together

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Writes Hopewell Chin’ono

Let me start a conversation that will help us understand what UNITY means. It doesn’t mean factions of CCC or MDC coming together, unity means more than that.

It doesn’t mean Mwonzora, Linda, Komichi and Mudzuri coming together with Chamisa! There are more Zimbabweans o

utside the political support bases of both CCC and ZANUPF combined. Unity means serious people who are desiring change in Zimbabwe and not just CCC members or leaders coming together!

CCC as a political party had no capacity of removing ZANUPF, so true unity goes beyond party affiliations and it involves a broader coalition of individuals committed to positive political change.

It requires collaboration across diverse groups to collectively address challenges and work towards common goals for the betterment of Zimbabwe. Civil society, the church, women’s groups, students, workers, intellectuals and so on should all be mobilised to come together.

You need people like Dr Nkosana Moyo, Prof Arthur Mutambara, Dr Simba Makoni and many others of that pedigree to sit on the table and drive a united political agenda for change together with Chamisa.

In Africa there has never been an opposition party that took power without the assistance of members of the former regime, so you will also need people like Saviour Kasukuwere and Walter Mzembi on the table if you are to remotely achieve change.

The Zimbabwean opposition’s attitude that it doesn’t work with anyone who was in ZANUPF will mean that the opposition will be in perpetuity of opposing.

All democratic transitions in Africa involved collaborative efforts to remove horrible regimes like ZANUPF.

After all, you have opposition leaders like Promise Mkwananzi in there who are run by the regime’s secret service, so is it not ironic that you can’t work with Kasukuwere and Mzembi but you are happy to work with Mkwananzi?

I want to put it on the record that I will not get involved in any election campaigning unless there is a genuine UNITED front, otherwise it will be a waste of my time campaigning for something when I know the result ahead of the event.

Have you ever asked yourself why ZANUPF hates an opposition broad coalition? It is comical that opposition leaders and their supporters only work with pro-regime folks when they bootlick Nelson Chamisa, and not when they articulate the national question.

You were happy to have Madam Khupe back after all she did, but you see Dr Nkosana Moyo as an enemy, a man who has passed the integrity test many times over.

If you didn’t know, the SADC engagement by CCC failed because the regional leaders felt that it was driven by a guy who is aggrieved who sent around junior emissaries instead of a broad coalition effort of Zimbabweans.

A pragmatic approach that involves individuals with experience from different political backgrounds is key to unlocking answers. I talked about democratic transitions in Africa, let us look at them.

In Malawi, Bakili Muluzi broke Kamuzu Banda’s dictatorship in 1994 bringing democracy, he was a former minister of the Banda regime. In Kenya’s democratic transition that removed KANU in 2002, Mwai Kibaki became president, he was a member of the former KANU regimes and rose to become KANU’s VP.

In Zambia MMD came into power removing UNIP, many of the MMD ministers were former UNIP.

Today’s Hichilema government has many MMD former ministers in cabinet. The VP was in Lungu’s party. The qualification for being a partner should be your Zimbabweaness and your intentions, not your skilful abilities to bootlick the opposition leader.

In South Africa, Mandela brought in his jailers into Government, in Zimnabwe Mugabe brought in his jailers into Government.

It is called Real Politik. Realpolitik is a term derived from German that translates to “realistic politics” in English. It refers to a pragmatic approach to politics that prioritizes practical and realistic considerations rather than ideological or moral principles