Has the Mujuru political train lost its bearings before it has even started?

If someone had suggested exactly twelve months ago that Joice Mujuru would be out in the modern-day Gonakudzingwa of Zimbabwean politics, ostracised and marooned in the political wilderness along with her allies, that person would most probably have attracted contemptuous laughter from many people.

She was the Vice President of the country, riding on the crest of a high political wave, and well on course, or so it seemed, to become the country’s next leader in the event of President Mugabe’s departure.

But in a frenetic period of less than four months, she was out of her job, battered, harassed and completely harangued and humiliated. The hunting pack was led by the First Lady, Grace Mugabe. It was uncouth and vicious. It was gross. And it was painful to watch. It was political molestation in a fashion that we had never witnessed before.

Professor Jonathan Moyo, the Information Minister, would later describe the vicious attacks and verbal lynching as “political banter”. It was a shocking description of what had transpired. His must have a very macabre definition of banter because what the world saw and heard at the time was anything but banter in the normal sense of the word.

Four months after she was sacked at the country’s Vice President, she was expelled from the party. They chose one of the quietest periods of the year, just before Good Friday, when everyone was in holiday mood, the first after the Festive Season. It was during the quiet period they chose to announce the expulsion.

That was the official pronouncement, but in truth, by that date, Joice Mujuru’s shelf-life in Zanu PF had long expired.

In fact, with the benefit of hindsight, we now know that Joice Mujuru’s Zanu PF career was burnt to ashes on the night of August 15 2011 at Alamein Farm in Beatrice, when her powerful husband, Retired General Solomon Mujuru met a horrible end in a highly suspicious fire incident. That tragic event left her exposed, alone and vulnerable. They might as well have called out checkmate on the political chessboard. The tears around her were the tears of a crocodile.

But many people have, since that inglorious fall at the Zanu PF Congress in December 2014, imagined that somehow Joice Mujuru would rise again and probably pose a serious political threat to President Mugabe and his would-be successors.

Indeed, the behaviour of senior Zanu PF politicians and the state media, encourages this kind of thinking. For if they are not attacking MDC’s Morgan Tsvangirai, their usual punching bag, they are attacking and denigrating Joice Mujuru and her allies. In this way, they betray their own fears over Joice Mujuru, believing that she somehow possesses the arsenal to hurt them.

For her part, apart from occasional defensive statements, Joice Mujuru has said little. This has left them unsure and confused. They don’t know what is going on in her mind. Does she have a strategy? Does her general silence mean she is scheming? They are not sure. It may well be that her silence is merely an indication of her own vulnerability. But they do not know that. So they must annihilate her.

But why has Mujuru remained largely silent, in the face of everything that has happened? Why has she not been bolder in the face of everything that she has faced in the last half-year? Does she really have a plan or is she simply clueles? There are various possibilities, which we explore in this article.

Forming a political party is hard

People underestimate the enormity of the task of forming a political party. It is a hard job. The easy bit is getting a few like-minded colleagues, dressed in suits or large African-print shirts and dresses, hiring a room in a city hotel and announcing to the press pack that you have resolved to form a political party, waving a bunch of papers and claiming to be committed to serve the people and triumph against an evil government. That is the easy bit.

Any group of well-meaning but deluded individuals can do that. In this internet age, some do not even care for the extra burden of hiring a room and convening a press conference. They just post their announcement on social media and overnight, they are the President and Secretary-General of a new political party.

But the truth on the ground is very different. You must penetrate the remotest parts of the country, establishing structures and selling your ideas and vision to a very sceptical, fearful, untrusting and politically battered and weary audience.  It is a hard job.

Zimbabwe is fortunate to have an alternative political organisation in the MDC, a truly national party formed many years after independence. Such a feat is hard to achieve. It will probably take another generation before a new political party of that magnitude is formed in Zimbabwe. As those who have left the MDC or Zanu PF have found out in recent years, forming a national political organisation is a hard shift. Joice Mujuru knows that. Her top allies know that too. She has been in politics for a very long time for that fact to escape her notice. The sheer size of the task of creating a third political organisation may be a deterrent.

Fear of Losing Benefits

Mujuru is a product of politics. Her wealth was built on the foundation of politics. Constitutionally, she is entitled to a full wage and benefits as if she were still the Vice President of the country. But she risks losing these benefits if she takes on new employment. This is new territory, and even if legally nothing precludes her from her entitlement while she is an opposition figure, she knows her rivals will still cut the flow of benefits if she officially declares herself a rival. It is a big risk.

But these legal benefits are probably the least of her worries. More worrying are the threats to her wealth amassed over the years, should she officially form her own political party. Mugabe has been less vindictive towards his long-time nemesis, Morgan Tsvangirai following the 2013 elections and this show of benevolence has surprised many people. There is no guarantee that he will be as civil towards Mujuru should she officially join the opposition ranks.

It is this fear of losing their wealth that has caused many who have been harshly treated by Zanu PF to continue to hang on without as much as a whimper. They just hope if they remain silent, and that if they slip away submissively, without too much noise, that they will be spared the wrath of Zanu PF and its leader. Mujuru might also have the same thinking, hoping, at the very least, to avoid the wors of her erstwhile comrades. This hope is likely to be misplaced, because eventually they will come after her.

Opposition is dangerous territory

Allied to the above point is the fact that Mujuru knows the danger that awaits them in opposition. They have been part of the machine that manufactures danger. They have intimate knowledge of the methods and techniques reserved for the opposition by their erstwhile comrades. They used to do the same things to Tsvangirai and others and they know it could well be their turn to receive the same treatment. This is a highly intimidating prospect and one must think long and hard before committing.

Recovering from shock

That Mujuru lost her position and power in Zanu PF was shocking enough. But no-one could have imagined the manner in which it was executed. It was brutal. It was political lynching, before the public gallery. It was humiliating and evoked pity, even among her critics. No person, least of all a Vice President deserved to be subjected to that kind of treatment.

But it happened and it must have left her emotionally pulverised and shattered. It is not easy to wake up the next morning and go on as if all is normal. One needs time to recover. It is to her credit that she maintained her composure and dignity in the face of extreme assault and provocation. But it is quite probable that she has been trying to recover from her very personal ordeal, especially at the hands of Grace Mugabe, who turned the screw relentlessly until she could scream no more.

She might have benefitted from having a partner. But with the General gone, she has alone and vulnerable. Instead, she has to deal with the many children allegedly authored by the General, some of whom are also throwing barbs of their own, claiming a stake in the late national hero’s vast estate.

Too Used to Zanu PF

From her youthful years, as a teenage guerrilla fighter in the war of independence, Mujuru has only ever known one political home. That home is Zanu PF.   From independence until December 2014, she had only ever known one job, as a minister of government. That was her life and that was her home. She knows no other life. Now, when you are used to one home, your ways are set and it is hard to thrive in an alien environment. You have to get used to it. You have to get used to a new life in the wilderness of the opposition.

This one-home syndrome means you over-rely on that single home and its culture. It is hard to think of anything else and you become scared, reluctant even to try new things. You want to stay in your comfort zone, because that is what you are used to. No wonder most of those who have been expelled from Zanu PF, including Mujuru herself, are often heard to say they are still Zanu PF or claim to be the “real Zanu PF”. In their minds they are Zanu PF and Zanu PF is them. They are inseparable from the organisation, even when it has spat them out. They cling to it.

The Hope to Return

Allied to the above is the ever-present, however remote and faith, hope of a return to Zanu PF. They all harbour that hope. Even Edgar Tekere, who left in the late eighties to form the Zimbabwe Unity Movement (ZUM) harboured hopes of a return towards the end of his life. At some point he was even re-admitted until the move hit a glitch.  Those who faced the chop, like Frederick Shava after the Willowgate Scandal, bounced back and he now serves as a high level diplomat in New York, after a stint in China.

Jonathan Moyo, the current government spin-doctor and Zanu PF political strategist found himself in the political wilderness in 2005, in the aftermath of the infamous Tsholotsho Declaration, but by 2008, he had achieved a remarkable political resurrection, sealed by his reappointment to his old post in 2013.

These stories of prodigal sons to lost their way but found a route back home are the kind of precedents that give Joice Mujuru and others hope that there is always a possibility of mounting a return to the only political home they know. It could be the existence of this possibility that prevents her and others of taking a completely new course.

Fear of Betrayal and Desertion

When Simba Makoni left Zanu PF and launched Mavambo in 2008, the story was that he had prominent heavyweights backing his bid for the presidency and that they would reveal themselves at the right time. This was promising and many people waited in hope. People waited and waited but no heavyweight emerged. They probably grew cold feet. Makoni went into the election alone, without the heavyweights. This is the problem with politics. The people you trust and rely upon let you down when you need them most. As long as people have something to hang on to, they will try to hold on and because people are by nature selfish, they will look after their interests first.

This is why, even though from the moment they saw Rugare Gumbo and others getting fired and they all knew that they would meet the same fate, they still waited to be fired, instead of standing by their principles and defending their own. It will take all of them to get fired for them to realise that they have to stand together. If Mujuru had launched her bid two months ago, before the expulsion of the latest victims of the purge, these same people would have looked the other side and pretended things were fine as long as they were not affected.

This is the same reason why someone like Simon Khaya Moyo, who has been accused of being with the Mujuru faction and knows that he is not trusted has nevertheless been happy enough to be spokesperson of Zanu PF, even making pronouncements against his erstwhile comrades. He’s simply saving his own bacon.

Lack of a Plan

A big and more damning possibility is that Mujuru and her allies simply do not have a plan at this moment in time. It could be that they simply don’t know what to do. All too often we give a lot of credit to politicians, believing that they have great plans and strategies. We imagine that they cannot be utterly clueless. We think they must know what they are doing. It never occurs to us that their silence might actually be an indication not of any plan at all but that there is really no plan. And if they have no plan they can’t actually do anything.

Timing

A kinder and more generous view might be that Mujuru and her allies do have a plan but that in politics, timing is everything. You have to time your moves well. This perspective would acknowledge that Mugabe himself played an excellent game of political chess. For years, he played along with Mujuru and her allies. The death of General Mujuru removed the biggest protection and exposed the Queen. They waited to get over the hurdle of the 2013 elections and then pounced when the gains outweighed any potential losses. It was better for them to deal with the so-called rebels after than before the major elections.  Timing. Timing is key in politics, as with most things in life.

So a more benevolent interpretation is that Mujuru and her allies are awaiting the right time to launch a bid for power and to challenge their erstwhile comrades. An early move might expose them. Mugabe and Zanu PF were deliberate to launch the purge long before an election. If Mujuru starts now she might expose herself and get tired by the time 2018 arrives. They might think there will be better impact to launch not long before the elections. And yet, delay too long, it might leave her with too little time to organise any formidable challenge. If she has any intentions, then she has to strike the right balance, the balance between exposure to risk and exposure which would yield benefits.

The Future?

Will Mujuru launch a bid for leadership? The answer seemed obvious a few months ago. She had been wounded but there was a perception that she had support within Zanu PF. She had managed to organise the structures to her advantage. After all, nine out of 10 provincial chairpersons were sacked. A lot of Ministers were dismissed. MPs have been thrown out. Many others have been ditched. She probably had support. But her silence and lack of activity has begun to confuse and probably disillusion her allies. This is why the likes of Temba Mliswa, victims of the purge, are beginning to raise critical noises.

The more she remains silent, and the less she shows visibility, the more difficult and confusing it will become for her supporters. If she has a plan, then she has to communicate it. Zanu PF are gradually chipping them off, decimating them as time passes. In the end, she will be left exposed, not because she doesn’t have supporters but because her allies would have been disillusioned and dispirited. And when people get disillusioned, they disengage. This is the biggest risk that she and her main allies face – that people will lose confidence and disengage.

The people of Zimbabwe at this moment are waiting for leadership. They are dying for brave and selfless leaders who are prepared to make critical sacrifices; those who put the people’s interests first before their own.

But as I have said already, forming a new political party is a hard job. Mujuru’s best bet, indeed, Zimbabweans best bet, is a strategic alliance with the biggest opposition party at the moment and that party, as everyone knows, is the MDC. The large political characters all round will have to be prepared to make very important sacrifices.