As we report elsewhere in this issue, Zanu (PF) has sent out mobs of youths, war veterans and other hoodlums committing violence and intimidating villagers to back the partys position during the ongoing constitutional outreach exercise.
The Zanu (PF)s position is that Zimbabweans must back the adoption of the notorious Kariba Draft constitution as the basis of the proposed new constitution.
And the only reason Zanu (PF) wants the Kariba Draft is that the document proposes retaining an all-powerful and unaccountable executive president and allows Mugabe to stay on for another two terms.
Put differently, the Kariba Draft seeks to virtually confer upon the 86-year old Mugabe the badge of life president he has so coveted.
A point of clarification for the benefit of the uninitiated: a Mugabe life presidency to the Zanu (PF) club means continued and unfettered access to the national purse, white-owned farms and other resources — or need we mention Marange.
The army, as usual, has been sent out to the villages and city suburbs to back Zanu (PF)s position, threatening, as they did in Karoi town last week, to bring war to the doorstep of anyone who dares voice opinion contrary to the provisions of the Kariba Draft.
But Zanu (PF) has outdone itself this time round. Leaving nothing to chance the party has simply decided that it is the people and will speak on their behalf during the exercise to consult the public on what they want included in the new charter.
Paid agents have been stationed in villages, equipped with notes and answer scripts drafted by the Super Patriots at Zanu (PF) headquarters showing what they should tell members of the Constitutional Parliamentary Commission when they visit.
All the other villagers are under strict instruction to remain silent during outreach meetings and let the party agents speak. Anyone disobeying this order does so at his or her own peril.
Never before has a political party not even Zanu (PF) itself shown so much contempt for the people it claims to serve!
Post published in: Editor: Wilf Mbanga