Zimbabweans should get out of messiah politics

Last Saturday, Justice Priscilla Makanyara Chigumba, the chairperson of the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC), announced that the ZANU-PF’s Mnangagwa won 52.6% of the vote against CCC’s Chamisa’s 44%.

The news was met with uproar, particularly as the SADC Election Observer Mission and the European Union Election Observer Mission had both released observer reports in which the credibility of the elections was questioned. The pandemonium was especially pronounced within the diaspora community, a significant proportion of which support a change of government in Zimbabwe.

And while the uproar is understandable, it will do nothing to change the situation in Zimbabwe. But more than this, it does nothing to provide the honest reflection that Zimbabweans need to engage about the perilous state of their main opposition party, CCC, and their own marriage to messiah politics.

Zimbabweans are afflicted with messiah politics – the belief that their liberation is going to be brought by someone somewhere. It was the case with Tsvangirai, who was elevated to the status of a deity. The same thing repeated itself with pastor Evan Mawarire, a man whose video about the significance of the Zimbabwean flag was enough to catapult him to the level of a national hero who was going to part the Dead Sea and liberate Zimbabwe.

Itai Dzamara was also subjected to the same fate – elevated to a messiah who would liberate Zimbabwe. He was left to be a target by the security apparatus because millions of Zimbabweans – who should have been with him at Africa Unity Square – stood on the sidelines and let him protest alone. 

Even Mnangagwa, the most hated man today, was celebrated as a hero following the coup that removed Mugabe, with many believing and openly stating that Zimbabwe would be better under his rule.

They had elevated an individual to a liberator – completely ignoring the fact that he had always been an instrumental part of the murderous State as far back as the 1980s. Mnangagwa, who was the Minister of Internal Security and the chairperson of the Joint High Command, had oversight over both the Central Intelligence Organisation and the Fifth Brigade during the horrific Gukurahundi genocide where tens of thousands of Ndebele people were slaughtered.

He continued to be instrumental under Mugabe’s murderous regime. And yet, this was the man whom Zimbabweans clapped for during the coup. This pattern of messiah politics continues with Chamisa – a man who is now seen as the great liberator of Zimbabwe and who, as a result, cannot be criticised even when he perpetuates dangerous cult politics that, ironically, contributed to the state of disaster that Zimbabwe finds itself in.

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