PASSING ON POLITICAL DEBAUCHERY

By Reason Wafawarova in SYDNEY, Australia
APART from the hazards of manipulation that come with external funding, the proposed constitution faces vitiation from political hawks, donor mongering charlatans, over-zealous novice activists, and many other swindlers that have wormed their way into the constitution-making process.
Libertines from the political fraternity are clearly more worried about creating a constitution that can give the immediate gain of quenching their political debauchery that is often driven by habitual lewdness for power and self-aggrandisement.
These are the hawks whose pre-occupation is to design a constitution tailor-made to advantage specific political allies and to disadvantage political rivals.
Some of these people openly say they want a constitution that will sideline certain political personalities while ensuring that others will win the next election.
The donor mongering charlatans are often experts in the doctrine of truisms and good intentions.
Their primary motivation is to impress donors, and the strategy is often to fulminate against the establishment, portraying it as an irremissible arrangement suffocating the rights of the masses.
The denunciations are often decorated in vociferous rhetoric on matters such as freedom(s) of speech, association, choice, and a lot of other political and civil rights.
Any sane person cannot have a problem with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, or any of the basic freedoms expected of citizens across the world.
The problem is when some people ride on the popularity of these freedoms to defame their political rivals as opponents to these freedoms; and to buttress their case they manufacture scenarios that are designed to convince donors into funding the facade that often carries the title "struggle for democracy".
Donors funding the constitutional process are often misled to believe that Zanu-PF is against the basic freedoms of speech, association, choice, expression, Press and so on and so forth.
This is despite the fact these freedoms are not only in the current Constitution that was drafted by the same party in 1979, but are also in the party’s position paper for the proposed new constitution.
The overzealous political and civic activists are usually the directionless noisy youths that are clearly smitten by the zeal of the novice.
Their position is usually defined by affiliation to political parties and all they do is wait to toe the line of whichever charlatan hired them, absolutely for the sake of it — and often in a rowdy and violent manner.
These are often motivated by such things as fanaticism, blind loyalty, ignorance, promises of privileges, or they are simply purchased by money or such goodies like liquor or even T-shirts and other regalia.
These youngsters are the sorry reality of African politics — a reality of the undesirable mix of democratic politics and poverty.
The common factor between political hawks, donor mongering charlatans and overzealous political activists is greed.
They are all unrepentant rakes devoted religiously to debauchery.
When elected to political office or when appointed to public office or any position of power, these people forget immediately the sweet and impressive rhetoric they preach so thunderously on their way up.
They begin to change friends and acquaintances and they establish their own elite networks designed to accumulate as much lucre and influence as can be accessed.
Elected with hardly a pair of shoes to their name, they cruise in six different cars after a few months, as Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai publicly lamented at a political rally recently.
This writer knows very well that only the collective action of the populace will make a constitution work.
Words coined nicely and eloquently can impress lawyers and academics but what turns the wheels is the action of the masses.
We must get the people’s commitment to the constitution making process and it is only that commitment that will make the constitution work.
Without it, the law can be flouted at will and it will just not matter that there is a constitution in place.
We want people ready to lose everything for the gain in the attainment of the defined goal of living to posterity a nation-serving constitution.
We really do not need mercenaries and monetary minded people in processes like this.
Zimbabwe we are one and together we will overcome. It is homeland or death!
Reason Wafawarova is a political writer and can be contacted on wafawarova@yahoo.co.uk or reason@ rwafawarova.com or visit www.rwafawarova.com