Ouch! That gotta hurt
Watched Zanu PF chief doctor of spin Rugare Gumbo in last night’s news bulletin talk about Daniel Shumba’s bid for a “prodigal son” return to the higher echelons of the party he cursed for poor governance and lack of democratic principles a few years ago. Shumba left the party after seeing what every other Zimbabwean seemed to notice, that this party Zanu PF was no place for progressives. And his chosen way to make himself heard? He formed his own political party, the United People’s Party.
It’s crazy why people who seem better off and can lead productive lives as private citizens minding their own business always seem to think entering gladiatorial politics is the way to go, their own contribution to the betterment of humankind. Of course not many Zimbabweans even know Shumba formed a political party of his own, and it just became one of those outfits that make very forgettable appearances in the run up to elections and quietly disappear soon after. Think such parties as the African National Party, Peace Action is Freedom for All and others in between.
And now, Daniel Shumba has once again rekindled his courtship with Zanu PF, only to be told he must line up like everyone else and join from cell level and then work his way up. And this for a guy who was once a Zanu PF provincial chairperson! No favours here comrades, we don’t forget that easily. And yes, he must first publicly announce that he has disbanded his political party. I cannot even start to imagine what is going in this guy’s mind after what Gumbo told the nation on national telly. And in classic Zanu PF-speak, Shumba “expelled himself” from the party!
Surely Shumba must have shoved it and went on with his many businesses, than subject himself to such humiliation, first at the
2008 ballot back then when he had to launch a constitutional court application to contest and now at the hands of Zanu PF itself. I suppose Shumba’s flaw is that, like many other ill-informed Zimbabweans, the future of Zimbabwe lies with Zanu PF, those types who are obsessed with being members of this party of the miserable past simply because it offers them unbridled avenues to self-aggrandisement. Everyone knows this by now, but then for Shumba to be told that he must re-join the party as an ordinary card-holding member ought to be yet another lesson for all Zimbabweans Africans that there is life beyond politics. But then he did once say that forming the United People’s Party was a joke. Yeah right, look who’s laughing now!