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MDC must replenish top leadership ranks and strengthen itself internally
Last week, I moaned about the muddled and disjointed work relationship between the information offices of Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai and that of the party.
This week, I am glad to hear that people have been shifted around in the Prime Minister’s information department, hopefully in an effort to smooth things over.
I hope the changes will definitely improve the situation but that is not enough.
Tsvangirai must now advance towards his sleeping advisors who are not advising him that he is not being advised.
Because of these lackadaisical advisors, the MDC has accrued a list of embarrassing about turns.
That has to stop.
It all started with the MDC’s “secret” September 2007 negotiations with ZANU-PF.
The outcome of those secret negotiations was what came to be known as The Kariba Draft Constitution.
The MDC and ZANU-PF officials signed the document indicating their approval and acceptance of it.
Years down the line, the MDC developed doubts; they no longer wanted anything to do with that Kariba Draft constitution.
Today, the MDC campaigns for a new constitution while ZANU-PF campaigns for a constitution that they agreed to with the MDC.
The MDC can only watch as its members are being brutalised, beaten up and chased away from their homes because of the Kariba Draft Constitution.
Then about two years ago, South Africa, through its former president, Thabo Mbeki, cobbled up a power sharing arrangement and, with the assistance of SADC, rammed it down the throats of the long suffering Zimbabwean people.
They called it the Global Political Agreement (GPA) and the Kariba Draft Constitution was one of the prominent attachments.
Nonsense!
It was not global and it was not an agreement.
It was just politics of desperation, necessitated by Mbeki’s failure to arbitrate; it was dangerous politics, as matters later turned out.
Above all else, it was the physical, economic and political rape of a nation.
After the quarrelling trio of Robert Mugabe, Morgan Tsvangirai and that embarrassing, directionless gatecrasher, Arthur Mutambara, appended their signatures to it, the GPA gave birth to the present government.
But just before the signatures were put onto the agreement and the toddler government sworn into office, the Movement for Democratic Change, led by now Prime Minister Tsvangirai, raised a very serious and pertinent complaint.
They discovered that the original agreement had been tempered with.
The MDC accused Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa of removing some paragraphs and of making several changes to some key sections of the “agreement”.
But, surprisingly, despite that, Tsvangirai and his party went on to sign the document.
How untidy!
But that is not all.
The MDC even signed the agreement despite the fact that the talks had not been concluded, with quite a number of very important issues still to be agreed upon.
The MDC signed the document that gave birth to the bastard government we have in Zimbabwe today.
Because of propaganda objectives for those who brewed this concoction, the moribund government in Zimbabwe is today known by official misleading monikers.
They call it the “government of national unity”.
Rumours, not true.
There hasn’t been any national unity in Zimbabwe and the evidence lies in what is today happening in both the nation and in government.
Like I have said countless times before, the people of Zimbabwe are not, themselves, divided but are being shepherded into silly intolerant crevices in which circumstances have been deliberately created to pit us against each other.
Yet we are all sheltering together as we run away from the same enemy.
Tell me, if you will, the difference between MDC-T and MDC-M, never mind the stupid initials imposed on party names to inflate personal egos at the expense of decency.
What is the difference between them?
Then there is that party with a first name, a middle name and a surname! Save for the initials, what distinguishes Mavambo-Kusile-Dawn (MKD) from the other political parties?
And apart from wanting to parcel out Zimbabwe into little tribal Bantustans, what differentiates ZAPU from all the others?
Tell me the difference between all our political parties.
Keep in mind that what the “Marxist” ZANU-PF is doing is not its “doctrine”.
They find strength outside their doctrine as they dump the constitutions of both their party and nation.
The other lie is in calling the moribund government in Zimbabwe a “coalition government”.
Public understanding of a coalition government is “a cabinet of a parliamentary government in which several parties cooperate”.
A coalition government supposedly “gives a government the high degree of perceived political legitimacy it desires whilst also playing a role in diminishing internal political strife”.
Aah!
“Perceived political legitimacy” of this coalition government still refuses to take hold in Zimbabwe, as the principals continue with unnecessary arguments.
As for “playing a role in diminishing internal political strife”, this coalition government has failed dismally, as the political strife in our country indicates today.
Political violence is getting worse. People are killing and beating each other while the leaders watch.
Nothing is being done at all, except press releases condemning violence.
I hope one day, we will be able to retrieve our compatriots from the mountains into which they have been forced to seek refuge.
The heart of the matter is that we have no coalition government. We do not have a government of national unity.
And the MDC must accept this; because it is misleading us and the world into thinking that there exists a coalition government in our country.
Our government is unable to protect its own members; it spends most of its time arguing with itself.
Our government is unable to bring enough stability and protection for people to exercise their right to create their own constitution.
We have a government that hates its citizens.
We have chaos.
The opposition party is ruling and is in charge while the ruling party spits a pitiful amount of resistance.
The MDC, like all of us, has been had; it remains in perpetual denial.
They better snap out of it and deal with reality.
We are continuously warned to be careful about what we pray for because we will be stranded when our wish is granted.
We prayed for the MDC.
Today, we can clearly see that not only has the MDC leadership been to the Promised Land, they already own property there.
As we wait, they want us to accompany them there so we can be their tenants.
They have already forgotten that they are our servants.
These people can’t be serious.
You would think that after signing defective constitutions and agreements they would know better!
Guess what happened at the recent SADC Summit in Namibia?
After their closed door plenary sessions, I heard Tsvangirai applauding the SADC Troika for having pinned down Mugabe by issuing another ultimatum.
Tsvangirai cheered as if he was the cause of the stalemate, as if he was able to unclog the mess.
Meanwhile in Harare, the MDC Secretary General, Tendai Biti, rushed to tell the media how glad he was about what SADC had done and described it as “a milestone”.
The MDC told everyone how happy they were with the outcome of the SADC Summit.
A couple of weeks later, the MDC cried foul.
After profusely praising the outcome of the SADC meeting and what had been presented, they suddenly accused someone of having influenced the final draft on what the Troika had agreed upon.
Today, the MDC says the final communiqué from the SADC Troika had been changed and was tempered with.
Does that sound familiar?
Tsvangirai’s party accuses the carpetbagger, Arthur Mutambara, of having written a letter influencing Zuma and SADC to tie one of the outstanding issues, that of swearing in of provincial governors, to the lifting of sanctions.
Once again, the MDC denounced an outcome they had initially blindly applauded.
The nation is polarised but deceptively appears united because we all have a common enemy: the politicians!
Politicians are no different from each other because none can survive without exploiting the “common” person.
So what is the beef?
The MDC must firm up as a matter of urgency. They are playing unproductive games and are playing right into the hands of SADC and Jacob Zuma who have no real intention of assisting them.
The MDC must provide new, younger and vigorous advisers for their leader and get rid of the bumbling old lot who specialise in flip-flopping.
Tsvangirai must have new advisors with foresight and Tsvangirai must himself remain open and accessible, instead of huddling in a corner with relatives and so-called close associates.
It’s time of reckoning for the MDC. It’s sink or swim.
Elections are looming.
The MDC has to take firm stands and try not to appease anyone but their electorate.
I fear they will unwittingly choose to sink; they have been doing it all the time and they are used to it.
The MDC has forgotten how to swim.
am Tanonoka Joseph Whande and that, my fellow Zimbabweans, is the way it is today, Thursday, September 2nd, 2010.
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