By Tendai Ruben Mbofana All this simply because of the opportunity to chair the 44th SADC Heads of State and Government Summit in August this year. One would be excused for assuming that this was some great honour, which is the preserve of only the most outstanding nations in the southern African region. In fact, this is not even portrayed as Zimbabwe, the country, assuming the chair, but packaged as a personal victory for President Emmerson Dambudzo Mnangagwa.
The term ‘elected as SADC chair’ is played around with, with reckless abandon, in a mischievous attempt at creating a deceptive impression of Mnangagwa having won an election against fellow SADC leaders to chair the summit. Wow, talk about desperation! No one is ever told that the SADC chair is a rotational position, which goes around from one member state to another. In fact, after coming across another ‘Zimbabwe is hosting the SADC Summit’ report in state-controlled media this morning, I decided to do a quick Google search.
I wanted to see just how other countries that have hosted the same summit treated this gathering of regional heads of state and government. After the Google search, I felt so embarrassed for my country, Zimbabwe. Those who hosted the summit in the recent past have hardly made a big hullabaloo over the whole event.
There was practically very little excitement in Angola, DRC (Democratic Republic of Congo), Malawi, or Mozambique, who hosted the 43rd, 42nd, 41st, and 40th SADC summits respecti.