It is incontrovertible that when leaders cease to be sensitive to the needs and aspirations of their followers, those followers will rebel and choose leaders whom they think are more likely to represent their aspirations.
The art of leadership, therefore, is the ability to anticipate and understand the shifting trends, opinions and aspirations of the people you may seek to lead, and then act to meet those needs otherwise, one will be rendered irrelevant.
By criminalizing open dialogue, criticism, freedom to associate and stifling personal liberties, leaders inadvertently starve themselves from information on new ideas and trends, which are critical to effective leadership. Inevitably that vacuum is filled by informers, spies and charlatans, who manufacture and manipulate the information in order to curry favour.
That eventually makes leaders irrelevant as they become unaware of the true reality on the ground. They are then perceived as insensitive to the needs of their followers and incompetent, no matter what good they may have done in the past.
That is the bed Mugabe has made and must now lie on. The use of violence and coercion to force Zimbabweans to agree with his ideas has not created a loyal followership, but an unwilling and anxious people who will dismiss him from power at the first opportunity they get.
This is the reality that those in the military, the police and intelligence services are refusing to accept. As Mugabe lies on the bed he has made, so must those that have been complicit in creating that bed.
The 4th Chimurenga has arrived; it is a battle of ideas about the future and cannot be won through the use of a gun as was the 3rd.
I think this should be instructive to those seeking political power in our country today. Our politics have to change, and the relationship between the governing and the governed has to be based on the agenda of the governed. In order for that to happen, it is up to all of us citizens to realize that as long we remain quiet and unconcerned, we are bound once more to afford an opportunity for our leadership to abuse our vote.
I expect that we will insist that it cannot be business as usual when a new government comes into power. No longer must we expect them to shape our future without our participation. No longer must we allow them to prescribe solutions to our problems. No longer can we accept that it is okay for the few to have unfettered access to economic opportunity while the majority merely survives.
We will need to be activists – to breathe life into a new participative democracy enshrined in our new constitution. We can no longer be spectators in our own country, nor should we be afraid.
The repetitive narrative that has been regurgitated in state media sought to create conformity based on lies and the manipulation to justify a centralized unquestionable political power. That can no longer happen.
The dishing out of gifts for votes still shows that as a people we really have not learnt from the past. No new ideas about the future are being shared and we are still voting for individuals for reasons other than their ability to create a better future for us.
In my opinion, freedom comes with responsibility and I doubt that most of us are aware of the power we have to change our circumstances. We must now stand up and be counted, Zimbabwe can never be the same again. – Vince Musewe is an economist based in Harare; you may contact him on vtmusewe@gmail.com
Post published in: Opinions & Analysis
I agree with Vincent views. It is high time we tell these so called leaders that its time for them to go else we will all means legal to remove them.. Short of that we will very quickly slid back to 2008. It is unfortunate that South Africa has again let us own. But then we should not rely on others to sort our problems for us. South Africa is a beneficiary of Zimbabweans chaos. Zuma would love to support ZANU but for to show that liberation movements should never be voted our during their life time. A very sad set of affairs