|
Does Tsvangirai really want sanctions lifted?
After being betrayed by SADC and Jacob Zuma, the MDC is better advised to sit down and re-strategise.
Just about everyone in the MDC is making statements on behalf of the party and it gets difficult to understand what really is going on within the party.
Contradictions are evident in statements coming out as everyone tries to get in a word edgewise.
Even the MDC’s priorities now appear fudged.
I find it somewhat amusing that Prime Minister Tsvangirai works so hard inviting business people to come and invest in a country whose leadership is under sanctions.
Can sanctions and the drive for investment co-exist; if not, which should be addressed first?
I have at times found it difficult to reconcile what the MDC wants with what it is doing.
There seems to be a wide gray area that the party and its leader are not addressing and it appears to be a deliberate thing.
Pronouncements from Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai himself and those from his party often confuse.
I get a feeling that Tsvangirai’s information department does not necessarily liaise with that of his party.
This seems to give credence to allegations that Tsvangirai’s reliance on his so-called “kitchen cabinet”, a group of relatives and very close friends, has shielded and slowly blinded him from intimate knowledge of what is transpiring “on the ground”.
It appears as if Tsvangirai now no longer experiences; he hears the experiences from others.
The kitchen cabinet is looked upon with suspicion and abhorrence by senior MDC officials and structures. It is being accused of making policies and decisions that bind the party but without consultation, concurrence or consensus of party structures.
For example, what really is Tsvangirai’s position on the lifting of sanctions imposed on Mugabe?
Can Tsvangirai call for the lifting of sanctions amid the rot that still goes on in the country? Have the reasons the sanctions were imposed gone away?
If sanctions are to remain, how do they affect the investment drive that Tsvangirai himself appears to be spearheading?
A few months ago, MDC ministers, in the company of senior ZANU-PF officials, tried to tour Europe together, urging for the lifting of sanctions.
Please bear with me a little; I am trying to understand something here.
I fear that the office of Tsvangirai’s personal spokesperson, James Maridadi, is not working in step with the office of MP and cabinet minister, Nelson Chamisa, who is the official spokesperson of Tsvangirai’s MDC.
We, including Tsvangirai and the MDC hierarchy, all know that Tsvangirai and the MDC have absolutely no power or authority within this so-called “coalition government”.
They are not running the government or the nation but yet they are members of the government who have very little influence over policy.
Except, maybe and to a little extent, for the Ministry of Finance, the MDC has failed to implement any of their policies or agendas for the nation.
This is so because the power still rests with Mugabe and his ZANU-PF.
If Tsvangirai and the MDC had the power and authority to make a difference, they could have used it, wouldn’t they?
They could have clearly protected their own MPs who are being arrested on frivolous charges everyday.
The MDC could have stopped the brutalities and protected their own party supporters who are, as of right now, being chased away from their homes into the mountains to prevent them from giving input towards the new constitution.
If the MDC had the power and the authority, they could definitely have stopped the continuing farm invasions, which continue sixteen months after Tsvangirai became Prime Minister.
The MDC could have made a difference.
But they can’t; they have been shut out of political power and are still busy fighting for recognition within this unity government.
Touted to be one of this coalition’s biggest achievements is the abolition of the Zimbabwean dollar and the introduction of a three-way currency regime (US dollar, the South African Rand and the Botswana Pula) as our medium of exchange.
Today, we remember all too well when the MDC tussled with ZANU-PF for the Ministry of Home Affairs, which controls the police.
Mugabe feared that if the MDC got control of the police, the MDC would use the police to settle old scores.
Police Commissioner Augustine Chihuri bulked at the idea of having an MDC boss.
Because Chihuri knows where the bodies are buried, Mugabe pushed the argument into extra time and produced two ministers to run one ministry. The ZANU-PF co-minister is clearly in charge.
Today, the MDC has ineffective token representation in government.
As farms and forein-owned companies continue to be illegally seized, uncertainty reigns, highlighting the abhorrent absence of property rights in Zimbabwe.
Tsvangirai is inviting investors to come to Zimbabwe yet he has no power to protect anyone’s investment.
As he invites foreign investors to rush to Zimbabwe to invest, Mugabe has started to move forward his Indigenisation programme by setting up committees to oversee the handing over of 51 percent shares of any foreign-owned company to “indigenous Zimbabweans”.
The committees are dominated by Mugabe loyalists, most of them former military men, who have already started invading foreign-owned companies and claiming shares.
Just as he is unable to stop farm invasions, Tsvangirai cannot influence the Indigenisation programme.
“This country is still defined as a risk to investors…that is not a true reflection of the situation,” Tsvangirai said as he officiated at the opening of the US$2 million shopping complex at Ngezi Platinum Mine. “We have removed the foreign currency risk…the exchange risk is no longer there. What we should focus on is to create predictability in our politics to remove uncertainty.”
Create predictability to remove uncertainty?
Has Tsvangirai met a man called Robert Mugabe yet?
Tsvangirai is inviting foreign investors in the face of this economic empowerment plan that forces foreign-owned firms to transfer significant stake to local blacks over the next five years. Tsvangirai cannot protect these investors and their property.
What then is the equation?
Does it also not raise grave doubts about Mugabe’s commitment to free enterprise and property rights?
The heart of the matter is that, investment or no investment, sanctions must not be removed at this point.
Maybe Mr Tsvangirai can tell us how investments will be handled when more than half the cabinet is under sanctions.
Conversely, he might want to explain why sanctions should be removed now when so many of his own people are being subjected to the brutalities that invited the sanctions in the first place.
The problem is that those who are under selected sanctions are the very ones who are grabbing farms and foreign-owned companies, preventing further investment into the country.
To make it worse, Tsvangirai’s allies are not as effective as Mugabe’s.
SADC shields Mugabe and so does Jacob Zuma.
To that extent, it should be clear to the MDC that they cannot do business with these people unless if Tsvangirai just wants to enjoy the perks that come with his ineffective presence in the unity government.
What is happening now calls for a new strategy and the first thing for Tsvangirai to do is to get rid of all his current advisors and bring in people who have foresight to advise him.
He cannot continue relying on friends and relatives who put their own personal interests above those of the party and the nation.
The shallowness of his advisors has been showing for some time now.
Only last week did Mugabe agree to SADC’s demand that he and Tsvangirai should solve the so-called “outstanding issues”.
Some people actually cheered, claiming that SADC had scored a success.
As I predicted, three days later, Mugabe made a u-turn and told Tsvangirai that one of the outstanding issues, that of the swearing in of provincial governors, will be carried out simultaneously with the lifting of sanctions imposed on Mugabe and his inner circle.
The MDC, obviously, cried foul.
“Our position in Tsvangirai MDC is that restrictive measures (sanctions) are a bilateral issue between ZANU PF and those who imposed them on grounds of a deficit of good governance on the part of ZANU PF,” said their statement. “It has always been our contention that the authorship of restrictive measures is located on the doorstep of ZANU PF.”
But Mugabe is not swearing in those governors and to hell with SADC and to hell with Jacob Zuma.
Mugabe has once again shown Tsvangirai who the boss is; he has reminded Tsvangirai that SADC and Zuma mean nothing.
It is time that the MDC recognises the fact that they cannot do business with Mugabe.
Mugabe has allies who do plenty to shield him; Tsvangirai doesn’t have any allies to help him pry open Mugabe’s tight fist.
The MDC has plenty of introspection to do as of now. They cannot afford to continue bashing their heads against the wall the way they are doing.
The MDC must rediscover itself and give the people a renewed hope, otherwise they are wasting their time.
I am Tanonoka Joseph Whande and that, my compatriots, is the way it is today, Thursday, August 26, 2010.
|