MDC needs to restore hope among its legion of supporters

By Tichaona Sibanda
8 November 2006

The MDC’s district chairman in Durban South Africa has said the biggest challenge facing the MDC now is to restore hope among its millions of its supporters based in and outside the country.

Percy Nhau, whose district is currently involved in a massive membership drive in the KwaZulu-Natal province, agreed the party was faced with a crisis with the backdrop of having three elections ‘stolen’ away from them.

Inevitably he said that lost hope always forces people to lose interest and invariably leads to voter apathy, a characteristic most evident during elections in Zimbabwe.

‘A lot of our members lost hope after losing three elections on the trot and the effects of that is evident from elections held after, where the voter turnout was so poor. People just don’t bother to go out and vote when they know it won’t change anything,’ Nhau said.

Nhau said the only way of regenerating hope in the millions of MDC supporters was to engage and assure them that Zanu (PF) is not invincible. First he said activists had to unite and push for change by way of demonstrations in countries like South Africa. Thereafter activists had to be warned of the dangers of voter apathy.

‘The response from our membership drive has been tremendous in the last couple of months. People still have interest in the welfare of their country and by engaging them more often they will begin to have hope and start visualising that change is inevitable,’ he said.

Nhau explained the quiet diplomacy adopted by the South African government suited them as it meant exploiting the situation by getting more investment and cheap labour at Zimbabwe’s expense.

‘The South Africans like the situation as it is. They pay low wages to Zimbabwean immigrants and most companies are relocating down south bringing in more investment as a result of the political situation in Zimbabwe,’ Nhau said.