After holding his country and most of southern Africa at ransom for a good number of years, Robert Mugabe?s endgame is now indisputably underway in Zimbabwe.
Zimbabwe is going through a meltdown, and Mugabe?s crimes in that country are no longer forgivable.
It?s clear from his latest actions that Robert Mugabe can no longer readily tell the difference between evil and good; that is, if he ever could, hence his madman-like crackdown on political opposition and all other democracy-inclined institutions in his country.
His latest anti-democracy theatrics are only making the country even more prepared for a more sensible and statesmanlike president.
There is no doubt that distaste for Mugabe has grown both inside and outside Zimbabwe.
Lies and unconditional support that pass for quiet diplomacy accorded him by his regional colleagues have been busted.
The old operator has kept his grip on everything else but has sadly lost touch with reality.
Everybody knows how the man?s mindless antics have reduced the once venerable Zim Dollar into a worthless piece of paper.
Everybody knows how Mugabe?s intransigence has sent international donor organizations like the IMF and the World Bank packing, leaving behind on the lurch many ordinary Zimbabweans who desperately needed assistance.
Everybody knows how Mugabe?s gruesome cruelty has driven millions of innocent citizens of Zimbabwe into the wilderness, leaving their beloved country against their will.
Thus, it has become unsafe, irresponsible and reckless to allow him to continue in power.
With the anti-Mugabe world movement gaining momentum, lies of quiet diplomacy can no longer be used as an alibi to dupe everybody into his continued stay in power.
Zimbabwe is undergoing a meltdown (political, social and economic) and Mugabe is not the man to restore the country to its days of lost glory.
It is possibly true that he still has charisma as his apologists like to point out, but he has no requisite levels of sanity left inside him as to be able to make sound judgments required of a state president, judgments upon which relies the security and political stability of the region.
He should not be allowed to deliberately misrepresent all forms of revolt against himself by attributing it to the West, as if the Zimbabweans and other Africans cannot think as to be able to see how evil his ways have become without being told so by the West.
He should not be given another chance to dupe everyone once again into falsehoods that he can reform.
It is also unpardonable that this is the man who has done everything to send the economy of Zimbabwe rambling down in shambles.
His latest behaviour is of a man who has lost all traces of connection with reality.
An experienced and schemer politician he is, Mugabe knows better than many regional leaders that his days are truly limited, hence his swift willingness to ascent to negotiations with the opposition.
For those of us bent on seeing his back, we should draw solace from the fact that for the first time there is serious and credible dissent brewing from inside his ZANU-PF, a once revered African liberation movement that he has so deplorably and unrepentantly dismantled and reduced into an organization of petty thugs.
The region and the Zimbabweans, (especially the Zimbabweans) who have suffered quietly can only watch and rejoice that at long last change is in sight as Mugabe?s erstwhile partners in the plunder of their country are deserting him.
For the first time, there are alternatives to Mugabe inside the ZANU PF.
One of his two handpicked scarecrow Vice Presidents, Joyce Mujuru, has made it clear she has had enough of Mugabe?s appalling antics.
Mujuru, wife to retired ZANU PF strongman General Solomon Mujuru, has immensely benefited from Mugabe?s patronage. She has never been out of cabinet since independence. Now, it appears, she wants the man out and wants the top position for herself.
Another ZANU PF strongman, Emerson Mnangagwa, Mugabe?s lifelong henchman and former intelligence supremo, has also made public his pretensions to the throne. Mnangagwa, who has held several cabinet posts from State Security to Justice, was once viewed to be too close to Mugabe for comfort. When he lost his parliamentary sit to the MDC, Mugabe installed him in parliament as Speaker of the House.
Both these ?front runners? are, therefore, not ordinary Zimbabweans. They are big names in Zimbabwe who are still very close to Mugabe. They are Mugabe?s inner circle; the people whose families have benefited immensely from Mugabe?s largesse, delivered at the expense of other Zimbabweans. Mujuru and Mnangagwa are the people who have been the chief apologists of the regime.
They are people who have played key and leading roles in ensuring Mugabe?s continued stay at the helm even as the world mumbled and grumbled against the erosion of civil liberties and freedoms over the years, not to mention of the collapse of a once functional economy. They are his close lieutenants but who, it appears, would like their benefactor to now retire and leave the chair for either one of them to occupy.
It?s time for Mugabe to go.
His arrogance in the face of seemingly infinite tolerance from his regional friends has been his greatest undoing.
He should not be allowed to hang on anymore.
When all is said and done, it still remains a mystery as to how Mugabe has been able to hold on to power for so long as to survive all the grim tidings in his country all of which he has been chief catalyst.
