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Nduduzo Tshuma, Political Editor
Two years ago, in this month of December, Masvingo province, the host of the 16th Zanu-PF annual People’s Conference gave a warning and prophecy to events that were to change the course of history of Zimbabwe.

Two years later, the party holds its 17th conference in Esigodini, Matabeleland South, with the party and country having gone through a transformation and change of leadership.

The Masvingo Agricultural Show, the venue of the 2016 conference then, reverberated with the song “Kumagumo kune nyaya,” a warning to the G40 faction that while they thought they had everything in control and their plan to push out Cde Emmerson Mnangagwa seemed fool proof, they would be left with egg on their faces at the end.

At the time, Cde Mnangagwa, then deputy to former President Mr Mugabe, was under siege from the notorious faction that was to come up with the “Presidential Youth Interface Rallies.”

The motive of the rallies was not to address the plight of the country’s youth who form the majority but use it as a platform to attack Cde Mnangagwa with the objective of pushing him out of the party.

However, as fate would have it, their plan spectacularly collapsed in November last year with the Operation Restore Legacy and other events that led to the resignation of Mr Mugabe and the elevation of Cde Mnangagwa as leader of country and party.

The Special Congress of December 2017 that was initially scheduled by G40 to influence the party’s succession matrix became the one that ratified Cde Mnangagwa’s elevation to the helm of the party as President.

He then won the Presidential elections on July 30 this year, giving birth to the Second Republic whose main agenda is to change the country’s economic fortunes and transform the peoples’ lives.

The guest at the Masvingo leg of the conference was President Cyril Ramaphosa, then deputising former South African President Jacob Zuma.

And after events that led to the resignation of Mr Zuma in February 14 this year, President Ramaphosa was elevated to the South African presidency having won the party’s leadership race in the ANC National Congress in December 2017.

The two leaders have taken bilateral relations between South Africa and Zimbabwe to another level.

Last month President Ramaphosa urged the European Union (EU) to lift sanctions on Zimbabwe, saying the country has turned a wonderful corner and needs support on its path to great reforms.

He made the call to the EU leaders during the 7th South Africa European Union Summit in Brussels, Belgium, where they discussed issues around trade, climate change, women’s rights and other global issues.

“We discussed a matter of other countries in our region, particularly Zimbabwe, and called upon the EU to review its position on Zimbabwe and move towards lifting whatever sanctions they might still have on Zimbabwe because Zimbabwe is on a path of great reforms and we insisted that this needs to be supported as the country has turned a wonderful corner,” President Ramaphosa told the press after the summit.

The previous month, the country’s International Relations and Co-operation Minister Lindiwe Sisulu said her country stood ready to assist Zimbabwe so that the reforms it was implementing to turn around the economy succeeded.

It is against the background of the shift from politics to the economy in Zanu-PF, the party that forms the Government, that the friendship with South Africa and other friendly countries should be appreciated and celebrated.

Esigodini stretching to Bulawayo is prime land historically linked and occupied by the most powerful in the different historical epochs. First occupied by the Lozwi/Rozvi and was later taken over by Ndebele warriors led by Khondwane Ndiweni who commanded the Amakhanda and Amnyama regiments.

They settled there and drank from the Umzingwane, Insiza and Ncema rivers.

At the venue of today’s conference, settled Amatshetshe led by Sifo Masuku and it is the very place that Ndebele warriors had a fierce battle with white settlers in 1896 called Imfazo Yamuva.

The land that the white tents housing delegates attending the conference sit on is rich with history, a history of struggle and of the richness of the country in line with the theme of reviving the economy.

The conference is running under the theme, “Zimbabwe is Open for Business: Peace Unity towards an Upper Middle Income Economy by 2030.”

President Mnangagwa, addressing the Central Committee meeting on Wednesday said the conference will focus on growing the economy.

“During the liberation struggle, we would always sit down to strategise on how to execute the war. The task before us now is to look for ways to build our country and uplift the people’s livelihoods and ensure that we have better schools, clinics, hospitals and clean water. So we are saying the task of rebuilding the economy is what we are facing. So when we meet in Esigodini, that is what we should focus on,” said the President. “We are going to the conference to review our programmes and identify areas where we recorded successes and where we did not. We will also plan activities for the coming year. We have challenges we are facing with, some being normal when you are trying to fix an economy although some of them are acts of sabotage by our detractors.”

Today, President Mnangagwa also addresses a united and rejuvenated Zanu-PF that has healed itself from the toxic politics of the G40 cabal and what greater way of showing its renewed strength than the party’s crushing victory in the July 30 elections.

Ahead of the conference, provinces and party organs endorsed the President as the party’s candidate for the 2023 elections at the back of the July polls as sign of confidence and satisfaction of the direction President Mnangagwa is taking the country towards economic transformation.

However, the road has not been without hurdles as enemies of the Second Republic have tried to throw spanners into the works politically and economically but the Zanu-PF faithful takes solace in the fact that the party and Government faces these challenges with a visionary leadership and united organisation and friends like South Africa and other friendly nations willing to support Zimbabwe towards prosperity.

– The history of Esigodini was sourced from Historian and Educationist Mr Phathisa Nyathi.