Under ordinary circumstances a discussion of the possible successors to Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe would be an affirmative thing. Mugabe's murderous regime has to go. And similarly, a discussion of a possible successor who has shown the temerity to challenge Mugabe frontally would ordinarily represent serious progress.
Alas, the most likely successor to Mugabe will not come from the various factions of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) but rather from within Mugabe's own inner sanctum. Mugabe hand picked Joyce Mujuru to be Deputy President in 2005 after the death of her predecessor, Simon Muzenda. This decision raise many eyebrows in the country and across the region. To be sure, Mujuru has proven to be difficult for even Mugabe to control and she has shown an independent streak that has made him lament his decision. But worryingly, she has shown the same despotic tendencies as Mugabe, and perhaps even more problematic is that fact that her husband, former commander in the Zimbabwean Army and business magnate, Solomon Mujuru, seems to relish his wife ascending to the highest office in the land because her doing so would allow him to operate as a svengali behind the scenes.
According to a story in the Cape Argus:
It is Mujuru's tough talking and her controversial business dealings with her husband that sends cold shivers down the spines of many.
On occasion Mujuru has far outdone Mugabe's confrontational and divisive rhetoric. In the liberation struggle, she gave herself the nom de guerre, Teurai Ropa, which means “spill blood”.
She has boasted how as a young woman during the war she grabbed an AK-47 rifle from a dying guerrilla fighter and single-handedly shot down and destroyed a Rhodesian Air Force helicopter, killing all aboard. Her claim has never been independently verified by anyone who fought alongside her in the liberation war.
When violent land seizures began in 2000, Mujuru kept to the spirit of her nom de guerre by urging Zimbabweans not to hesitate to “spill the blood of white farmers” to recapture their land heritage.
She is said to have personally led several land invasions and threatened families with death unless they vacated their properties. At a time when Zimbabwe needs a conciliator, she seems to represent the opposite.
Zimbabwe does not need old wine in new skins. A successor who has spoken out against Mugabe represents a necessary but not sufficient condition for inheriting the reins of Zimbabwe. What the country needs is the emergence of a democrat interested less in power and more in her or his country's well being.
