HARARE - President Robert Mugabe is literally crawling through the valley of disaster — he has always done, some will argue, but, clearly, the earth is ceaselessly crumbling all around him this time around.
Last week, he summoned top Zanu PF officials to a meeting supposedly meant for preparing for the Sadc summit.
The summoning of members of cabinet came at a time Mugabe was in the depth of sinking under the heavy weight of uncontrollable chaos within his party.
There is no more room for masking the reality or papering the cracks — the house that Mugabe built for 36 years through blocks of iron fists and sheer brutality.
Mugabe had on Thursday endured the horror of the opening of the Zanu PF Women’s League conference, where it was open hostility, with his deputy, Joice Mujuru getting to the podium singing a song very pregnant with meaning.
“MaJudha woye. Pakati penyu apa, pane vachandipandukira (Among you Jews, some shall betray me and rise up against me),” an invigorated Mujuru thundered.
Mugabe must have easily understood what that meant, and that he should have been one of the “Jews” Mujuru referred to.
Mujuru’s carefully-chosen lyrics perfectly captured and symbolised the state of affairs in Zanu PF — open warfare and dog-eat-dog scenario.
Mugabe has virtually lost it!
He can no longer douse the vicious flames ravaging Zanu PF.
His desperate resort to tired rhetoric, threats and attempts at oratory are no longer producing any result, because the message is clear — he has been dragging the former liberation movement to the precipice.
The tragic comedy is in the full glare of a mature and hugely-agitated electorate — it shall require summoning all the devils and demons in the world for the next Zanu PF leader to turn the tide and cheat through the electorate again.
The Sadc summit in Victoria Falls, and where he assumes the regional bloc’s chair, is set to make a mockery of his trademark bullying, boastful and belligerent international image.
No amount of propaganda or pampering the delegates will succeed in concealing the chaos Mugabe is presiding over, 34 years after independence, and shall display before the regional leaders — who shall have been briefed by their Harare representatives, about a regime sinking under the burden of a decaying economy.
It shall not be missed by the Sadc leaders — their bad record in peer review and upholding principles notwithstanding — that their host continues to act bravado but has set the nation of Zimbabwe on fire, through unmitigated failure.
It shall not be lost on even the most gullible members of the gang of Sadc leaders, that, yet again, Zimbabwe is already a problem spot in the region — another huge disaster inching closest to happening.
It shall be a shame to the Sadc leaders, that while their host would, in trademark fashion, pontificate and grandstand in all manner of hypocrisy, he fails to fully implement a national constitution overwhelmingly endorsed by the nation more than a year ago.
The fawning Sadc leaders come face to face with their own shame of having endorsed Mugabe’s blatant rigging of last year’s elections — because the dire consequences wouldn’t have been missed by anyone.
The consequences of having endorsed their host’s controversial polls last year, are too glaring and blatant, that the Sadc leaders shall have shame written all over their faces.
As Mugabe will utter the rhetoric about “development” and “prosperity”, his audience will be tempted to laugh, because, they know the nature of basket case Zimbabwe finds itself in.
Mugabe’s audience would be aware that Harare’s Finance minister is constantly knocking on their doors, desperately begging, for money, power and even food.
Therefore, just like in the case of his starring role in the Zanu PF tragic circus, Mugabe shall get his rhetoric and hypocrisy splashed all over the media.
And, just like with the Zanu PF chaos, the stakes are very high for Mugabe, who shall soon have to battle national protests whilst perched in the Sadc chair, normally supposed to symbolise good leadership, honour and statesmanship.
All this can no longer be hidden from even the most gullible.