Machingura, The Judas Iscariot episode in the Zimbabwean Religio-Political debate...the ESAP (Economic Structural Adjustment Programme),^48 awarding of
unbudgeted payouts to War veterans, unplanned sending of troops to
the Democratic Republic of Congo and the massive corruption in the
state parastatals (culprits were known but nothing was done to them as
long as they were ZANU-PF officials or had ZANU-PF connections). All
these factors fueled the unpopularity that later characterised ZANU-PF
and Mugabe. ZANU-PF in general and Mugabe in particular responded
by calling MDC leadership and its followers as traitors and stooges of
Western states.
Clips were shown of the MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai receiving
cheques from the Zimbabwe Commercial white farmers on the forma-
tion of the party. It is clear that, outside forces were heavily involved in
the political battles in Zimbabwe, both in ZANU-PF and MDC. This was
shown by the eastern bloc led by China and Russia openly supporting
ZANU-PF as they traditionally did in the fight for the liberation of Zim-
babwe. The western bloc led by most of the European countries and the
United States of America openly supported the MDC. The political at-
mosphere was so dirty and it has remained so today, as the two major
political parties contest to take control of the levers of power. It became
dangerous and risky to be an opposition supporter let alone the MDC,
the purported party of ‘sell outs’. ZANU-PF deliberately exaggerated
their characterization of MDC as a ‘sell out’ party suggesting that vio-
lence against such people was justified. For the ordinary people, it
brought painful memories of colonialism and the ‘bloody’ long fight for
the liberation of Zimbabwe. In most cases, the national communication
industry/media (electronic and print, public and private) were roped in
to churn out hate speech against the labelled ‘sell-outs’. Webster Shamu,
(^48) ESAP caused social and economic dislocation on many families. It gave birth to many
NGOs that engaged in feeding schemes to hungry families. There was an increased
growth of poverty in rural areas and the low earners in urban areas. ESAP led to a
sharp decline in Mugabe’s popularity and people started to question the Messiahship
once attributed to Mugabe in relation to the suffering people experienced. Members of
the ruling elite had become to enrich themselves in earnest and they lost touch with their
traditional basis of support, the peasantry and the working class, H S Dashwood, Zim-
babwe: The Political Economy of Transformation, London: Univ. of Toronto Press, 2000,
193 ; See L M Sachikonye, Industrial Restructuring and Labour Relations under ESAP
in Zimbabwe, in P Gibbon (ed), Structural Adjustment and the Working Poor in Zim-
babwe, Sweden: Nordiska Afrikainstitutet, 1995, 38; F Machingura, The Messianic Feed-
ing of the Masses: An Analysis of John 6 in the context of messianic leadership in post-
colonial Zimbabwe, (BiAS 8), 2012, 242.