I do not agree with the argument by Tendai Biti that President Emmerson Mnangagwa "and his

vacuous philosophy is a danger to the ethos and very existence of Zimbabwe" and that
Mnangagwa "represents the biggest existential threat to Zimbabwe". I find this argument not
only simplistic, but patently ahistoric and quite frankly, apolitical. Ahistoric because it is devoid
of any meaningful engagement with the history that has resulted in the institutionalisation of rot
that defines the Zimnbabwean state; and apolitical because it is grounded in the discredited great
man theory that has so often characterised African politics - with tragic results.
The obsession with reducing the Zimbabwean crisis to a single individual is dangerous, and
recent history evidences this fact. Following the deposing of Robert Mugabe in the 2017 coup
(yes, it was a coup), there was misplaced optimism that Mnangagwa would institute meaningful
reforms that would see Zimbabwe recover from decades of economic and socio-political decline.
While many of us understood the basis for this optimism, we knew even then that Mnangagwa
would not change the situation. I was still a student at Rhodes University at the time and I would
often argue with my Zimbabwean friends that the crisis in Zimbabwe is systemic and deeply
institutionalised, and that merely changing the face of leadership is not going to undo the
problem. ZANU-PF, I contended and still continue to, is embedded in the Zimbabwean state.
The rot is not just at the top, it is in every facet of every institution in Zimbabwe - including in
the highly compromised judiciary that has long ceased to have any regard for the principle of the
separation of powers. The violence that has characterised Mnangagwa's presidency is not new. It
has always been there. And so, no matter who you put in power from the ZANU-PF, it is not
going to change the situation, because contrary to the hopeful delusions so many of us might
have, there is no better person within the organisation - they are products and functions of the
same vacuous philosophy that Biti ascribes to Mnangagwa alone.
This ahistoric logic of Biti's is common in Africa. Even here in South Africa, we were swept into
a frenzy by the false idea of a "new dawn" that was propagated by Cyril Ramaphosa. It has
become evident that there is no new dawn in our country - that the corruption, maladministration,
misappropriation of state funds, disregard for the rule of law and lack of accountability that
defined the Zuma era is continuing unabeted. Like Biti, we were victims of our own false
consciousness and belief in the idea that great men define history, with little regard for how there
is a series of complex influences that produce the material conditions that define our political
environment, at the heart of which is institutions.
The existential threat to Zimbabwe is the ZANU-PF as an institution. It is a metonymy of the
Zimbabwean state - a state that enjoys a monopoly of violence. No matter who leads Zimbabwe
from the ZANU-PF, it is always going to function as a military junta, because its very legitimacy
is non-existent, and therefore depends on force and rule through a margin of terror. The real
alternative lies in a stronger and better alternative, not in a reformed ZANU-PF. You cannot
reform ZANU-PF no matter who you put in charge. Biti's argument is patently misguided.