By Jealousy Mawarire
If you want to see how Zimbabweans are not serious about rebuilding this country, just look at the flippancy they exhibit towards the health of the 2018 presidential aspirants, especially President Robert Mugabe and Former Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai.
While Americans were worried about the health of both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump to the extend of seeking medical records to prove the two were in scientifically acceptable health conditions required for them to execute their duties if elected into White House, Zimbabweans seem to believe that two of the most frequent Intensive Care Unit (ICU) visitors, Mugabe (Singapore) and Tsvangirai ( South Africa), are the best characters to pull our country out of the economic ICU it has been admitted in since 2000.
While I agree with the argument that one’s health is a private matter, once one declares intention to run for public office, their health become a national issue.
It is foolhardy to expect that a leader under the weather can help turn around an economy that is just as sick as their physical body. The state of our economy, the arduous task of arresting the decay of infrastructure and the curbing of rampant corruption in public service needs a focussed leader, not someone battling chronic ailments.
I know we should not be discriminatory but elections, by their nature, are meant to discriminate one administration against the other. In an election you choose one against others, which process is discriminatory of one party against others or one individual against another. So in choosing our next president in 2018, I don’t think it’s criminal or devilish to choose the fittest among ourselves to preside over the imperative reconstruction that this generation and posterity expect from our next leader.
In the animal kingdom the fittest male is entrusted with siring the next generation to avoid extinction and I wonder why Zimbabweans shouldn’t learn from this progeny production principle to avoid the threat to extinction of our livelihoods and prosperity as a nation.
Where we are as a country needs the best in everything. We need our best physical and mental conditions, our best brains, best economic strategies, best regional and international synergies and the best of every other programme that pulls us out of the economic arroyo we are currently drowning in. We certainly don’t need a president, in 2018, who will be spending most of their time either in South Afria or Singapore receiving medical attention.
I strongly believe supporters who clamour for their leaders to be elected into office despite visible deterioration in health are callous, inhuman and selfish. If we love our presidents, as most of the sycophantic supporters profess, we should tell our dear leaders to take it easy, get out of the running for public office and concentrate on the MOST IMPORTANT thing right now– their health.
God created us in millions as Zimbabweans. He didn’t just create Mugabe & Tsvangirai. There are a lot of Zimbabweans capable of leading this country even in the political formations fronted by these ailing gentlemen.
I believe the greatest gift God gave us, is the human body which allows us to function here on earth and anyone who values power over the well-being of their body is suicidal and, therefore, not fit to lead this our beautiful country.