The Rhetoric of Indigenisation in Zimbabwe: An Electioneering Ploy or an Appeasement of an Embittered History?

This paper analyses selected public addresses by two key figures behind the indigenization drive in Zimbabwe, Honourable Minister Saviour Kasukuwere and His Excellency, the President of the Republic of Zimbabwe, Robert Gabriel Mugabe. Minister Kasukuwere, head of the Ministry of Youth Development, Indigenization and Empowerment, has lectured extensively on the ethos of the indigenization process, in like terms, President Robert Mugabe, as First Secretary of the revolutionary Zimbabwe African National Union Patriotic Front (ZANU PF), has addressed both the Zimbabwean populate and the international community on the justification of the indigenization process at various fora. The research used content analysis of the selected speeches by Minister Kasukuwere and President Mugabe, respectively, alongside interview of attendees to the public addresses in question. The paper acknowledges that ZANU PF has vowed never to retrace its steps on the indigenisation drive, a position which the opposition Tsvangirai – led MDC decries. Equally, the paper establishes that ZANU PF holds that the indigenisation move is a quest to right a historical wrong, appeasing an embittered history. However, critics of ZANU PF view the whole process as a Machiavellan electioneering scheme, thus leaving Zimbabwe a polarised nation. Accordingly, uncertainty as to what is in store for the country rings alarming bells.