Kasukuwere, we are told, has now thrown his hat in the ring. He might very well have, including throwing in his coxcombical image in which he feigns some mock-presidential poise.
This has caused some considerable stir in the social media,
but only!
We are still to meet a similar stir in the work-a-day world
where politics and politicians are made and unmade.
Interestingly, debate on social media is not on or about
his chances. Rather, it is on and about whose vote he is likely to split!
Which seals and immortalises his political fate as the
nearly man of Zimbabwe’s political contest. Again interestingly, some
supporters in the ruling party and the opposition alike are angry with him,
ironically for the same fears his ordained role seem to trigger!
He will eat into ED’s vote, a few impressionable ones in
the ruling party opine; he will divide opposition vote thus undermining
Chamisa, many in the opposition think and fear.
Between both camps is no Chinese wall! For both roles he
needs no schizophrenia. Not even a gossamer veil!
Bragging about negativity capability
What is my view about him? Well, as a candidate his
significance and value hardly surpasses a farthing which cannot procure even an
unregistered voter or a spoilt ballot paper.
No serious politician should waste time on him, any more
than he does on himself. His forlorn hope is to gain significance by causing
the authorities to wave a charge sheet in his face.
Through such a subterfuge he hopes to claim “negative capability”, to adapt the phrase of the Nineteenth Century Romantic poet, John Keats. It then allows him to join US’s Oliver North of the CIA Contra Scandal in bragging about himself “as the President Zimbabwe would not have”!
Hoping for a Mutambara moment
His only other alternative significance is to hope for a
Mutambara moment in the opposition: the hope of a small outsider whose chances
are magnified by stiff rifts inside.
I mean it needs no divination to predict that after August
23, Chamisa’s “thing” will be a fractious mess sure to devour its erstwhile
leader, with none of the multitudinous contenders to the throne ever
prevailing.
In that Mutambara role, Kasukuwere might meet King Arthur
and his green knights!
The model might just turn out to be the real opponent!
Chamisa’s Double
Perhaps what is worth more than a farthing is reading
Saviour’s aspirations.
Fortunately his aspirations provide fascinating
hagiography, which is to say a text in human form.
The first two paragraphs have Walter Mzembi and Sybeth
Musengezi as incarnates. This semantic side of Kasukuwere makes him Chamisa’s
double.
Through both characters, Saviour, like King Arthur, has
thrown his weight behind Chamisa. Both characters are his alter ego. His
offering himself as a separate Presidential candidate does not distract this
role; rather, is calculated to soften Zanu PF for Chamisa by diving its vote.
He hopes to be repaid for it, thus becoming yet another
variegated patch on Chamisa’s multicoloured Scottish-skirt party.
Playing red herring for Chamisa
The other hagiography would have come in the form and
persons of Dr Simba Makoni and Dr Joice Mujuru had it not been for ED’s
Big-Zanu PF, conciliatory tent politics. With both now inside and behind
President ED’s candidature, the remnant, tattered facsimile of that model is
the bitter Ibbotson Joseph, a.k.a. Ibbo Mandaza.
That role makes Saviour play the distracting role of a red
herring to Zanu PF’s campaign focus, assuming Zanu PF has forgotten bitter
lessons of 2008.
Such a role does not need prior understanding between
Kasukuwere and Chamisa. It just needs to happen, with gains accruing to Chamisa
as coming fortuitously and inadvertently.
Whether it is the Mutambara or Mavambo model, one outcome
is dead certain: Hamlet, the main actor embraces the fate of all tragic heroes
in a Shakespearean drama. In the end he dies, much like corporeal Makoni and
Mutambara soon after and at the conclusion of GNU respectively.
The only issue is in whose hands does he finally meet his
death! Whether death of a Double or a Red Herring, let the world of humans
decide.
The issue is that both deaths have been suffered before,
making Kasukuwere him a political cliché in human form, quintessentially bereft
of any originality, subjectivity or expressive force. I am only a braying
donkey!
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