Brett “Muvet” Holley
That at least, is the pitch. Brett Holley is a Zimbabwean businessman and social media personality better known by his public persona, Brett “Muvet”. He has spent recent years building an online following as a political commentator. This past week he announced the launch of Varanda VeZimbabwe, VVZ, translated as Servants of Zimbabwe.
Holley says the party exists to correct what he describes as a basic and obscene mismatch in his country: leaders who fly business class and live in mansions while ordinary Zimbabweans queue for water that may not be clean, hospitals without adequate medicine and classrooms that may or may not have desks.
He says he is doing this without personal ambition, for a legacy he wants to leave his son. He says he lives in a small house, drives an average car, and cleans it himself.
“I am fighting so that other Zimbabweans can have the life that I have,” he said, which is good because he does not claim the moral high ground of poverty. He says he isn’t asking Zimbabweans for a life he doesn’t already have himself.
Who is this man, and why does a country that has seen more opposition parties rise and collapse than most of its citizens can list from memory need to pay attention to one more?