All we ask for is a bit of consistency.
That can’t be too much for people to ask from a party they have stood by through thick and thin.
All we ask for is that since the MDC entered into this government of national unity, they should come out in full force and protect the people who have repeatedly stood for them and, in many instances, died for them.
The MDC political leadership must set, show and follow a clear path for the benefit of the people.
If we don’t stand for something, like the MDC leadership appears to be doing today, then we will fall for anything.
It is becoming more and more difficult for people to separate the terrible wrongs that continue to be perpetrated on them from the MDC’s presence in this government.
Photographs of our physically abused citizens, with swollen heads, mangled faces and with blood streaming down their faces and chests are discouraging even the optimistic, hungry and abused Zimbabweans.
Unfortunately, these current atrocities remind us of a man called Morgan Tsvangirai, when the world took pity after seeing him with a disfigured face and with wet scars on his head as he was being taken into court out of an open police lorry.
Blood was on the floor.
I also see a blooded vision of a near-to-death MDC spokesperson, and now cabinet minister, Nelson Chamisa, having been given the raw ZANU-PF treatment at the Harare international Airport, of all places.
Blood was on the floor.
And now the MDC leadership seem to have forgotten about all those days. The floors are being wiped clean now and the MDC think they are now sitting pretty and as long as they say they are trying their best, we, the people, will say ‘Amen’.
There is no chance of that.
There is blood on the floor.
So the MDC better lift its head up and see what surrounds them.
I am now confused as to what exactly the MDC wants and aims for. What is the real truth about Prime Minister Tsvangirai’s working relationship with Robert Mugabe?
If Tsvangirai is having problems with Mugabe, why is he being coy about it? He should say so directly so that the people may assist, as they have done since the MDC was formed.
We, however, know that he has no power and cannot implement anything.
A couple of weeks ago, Tsvangirai told the people that he has a good working relationship with Mugabe and that they respect each other.
And a few days ago, he told the world that he is going to SADC and to the African Union to look for assistance in getting Mugabe to respect the agreements that SADC put forward.
The Zimbabwean people are no longer the MDC’s constituency, but SADC and the AU now are.
So the Prime Minister and his top lieutenants have decided to invite SADC and the AU “to mediate” between him and Mugabe’s ZANU-PF.
I have long suspected that the Prime Minister’s optimism was unnecessarily too high, misplaced and elementary.
The same problems that dogged the MDC before, during and after the agreement was signed continue to haunt them.
Now it is becoming clearer by the day that they signed and entered into this government without asking for and being given anything in return.
What was the MDC promised and what did they get?
Is there any national unity to speak of.
As the Global political Agreement gathers dust in their offices, the MDC is contemplating going back to the very people who sold them out to ask for SADC’s help in overcoming SADC’s friend, Mugabe.
What help does the MDC expect from SADC, an organisation that has never mediated in any dispute and an organisation that always hides whenever member states are at loggerheads with each other?
This can’t be real.
The people gave the MDC time and the benefit of the doubt and supported their decision to join this government.
Then they got a little too comfortable and actually started making reckless statements in a sorry attempt to soften ZANU-PF into playing ball.
And then the people, the very supposed beneficiaries of the temporary relief the MDC apparently brought to the nation, started to complain, having realised that the MDC was slowly forgetting their mandate.
In reaction, the Prime Minister made statements to remind the nation that it was only a few elements in ZANU-PF who were working against the unity government. He demanded that they reform and accept the “new political dispensation” in the country. In all his carefully delivered utterances, it was clear that Tsvangirai did not count Mugabe as one of the people working to destabilise the unity government.
The MDC is on the path of appeasement.
Immediately after that, MDC Secretary General misguidedly issued an ultimatum to Mugabe and ZANU-PF, saying that all outstanding issues had to be resolved by Monday, May 11 or else...or else what?
Or else the MDC would refer the issue to the party’s supreme making decision body, the National Council. Big deal!
Mugabe, as usual, paid no attention to such threats but allowed a couple of inconclusive meetings to take place with no shift in policy or agreeing to any of the MDC’s demands.
The result was a May 17 meeting of the MDC National Council, which decided to “call in the big guns”, SADC and the African union, to deal with Mugabe.
The MDC actually intends to report Mugabe to Gaddafi?
So now, Mugabe waits, trembling in fear and anticipating heavy punishment from SADC and the AU!
This can’t be real!
The MDC actually jumped into this thing with no escape route or alternative.
So here we are now; we have come full circle. We have been there and back and the nation is still empty handed.
We are no longer producers but consumers and this arrangement, if dragged on for too long, will harm the people it is supposed to help.
At the time of the agreement, the MDC could have wrung out several concessions from both Mugabe and SADC, but they did not.
They could have expressed their willingness to join the unity government on condition that...
Then they could have brought up the issue of the state-controlled Herald newspaper and the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC) “to be reformed so that they report equally, fairly and consistently in line with the GPA”.
They could then have brought up the issue about “the equitable allocation of the country’s 10 gubernatorial posts, permanent secretaries, ambassadors, and the replacement of Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe Governor Gideon Gono and the Attorney-General, Johannes Tomana be dealt with prior to joining the GNU”.
They could have put conditions to their participation in the GNU because, then, the MDC had both SADC and Mugabe on the ropes But they failed to capitalise on their temporary position of strength and advantage.

So the MDC jumped chin deep into the swirling, flooded political river. Now they can’t go back where they came from; there are crocodiles massing there.
But for the MDC to continue appears impossible because it’s getting deeper and the current much stronger than before.
The people are pushing, getting sceptical and impatient.
The MDC must just turn back and attack the damn crocodiles to get back to familiar territory, regroup and re-launch the struggle  against this dictator who has worked so hard to humiliate them, putting the nation into worse distress The heart of the matter is that instead of going to SADC and to Gaddafi’s African Union, where the result is a foregone conclusion, the MDC must now urgently agitate for new elections because they have failed to get Mugabe to implement agreements put forward.
SADC itself has shown an inability or unwillingness to make Mugabe adhere to the agreement they imposed on our nation.
Send me your comments on tano@swradioafrica.com Circumstances that leave Mugabe with a variety of personal choices to make on national matters will not bear fruit.
The MDC has tried but it’s now time to accept that Mugabe is an unwilling participant in this GNU and the MDC’s continued flip-flopping does more harm to the nation than good.
I am Tanonoka Joseph Whande and that, my compatriots, is the way it is today, Thursday May 21, 2009.