MDC must agitate for a new dialogue that includes civil society

Tanonoka Joseph Whande

I have always believed that the bad can never triumph over the good.
When the good become accomplices to the bad, both do not become good or better; both become bad and represent the worst in humans.

Morgan Tsvangirai and the MDC are now tainted. They are slowly becoming bad and they are now being viewed with suspicion by many.
And it all has to do with that agreement to work with Mugabe and ZANU-PF. A day after signing the infamous agreement, Tsvangirai conceded his uneasiness in signing the agreement and went as far as saying he does not trust Mugabe one bit.
But he signed the agreement and he is having problems with it and the people are not amused.
I notice Tsvangirai’s slow but carefully choreographed move back towards the people to complain about Mugabe not holding up his end of the deal.
Tsvangirai and the MDC must be reminded that they denied the people the chance to know, debate, accept or refuse the much celebrated agreement the MDC reached and signed with Robert Mugabe, with more foreigners than locals in attendance.
Tsvangirai and the MDC shut the people out and now it appears as if they want to come back to the people to complain about Mugabe.
You can never cheat the people.

Meanwhile, Thabo Mbeki, the man who, behind only dictator Robert Mugabe, caused more distress and deaths in Zimbabwe, has been disgraced by his own party and recalled from the presidency.
Something becomes glaringly clear.
Mbeki, unlike Mugabe, had no alternative but to bow to the demands of his party, something that Mugabe would never do.
Mbeki told the nation that he has been a loyal member and servant of the ANC all his life so he said he was going to abide by the decision of the party. As if he had a choice.
When Mugabe lost the 2000 referendum, he urged his supporters to “accept the will of the people” only to unleash so-called war veterans on the farms and on the people and destroyed the nation through vengeful decisions meant to punish the people for rejecting his intentions.
Mbeki was magnanimous in his acceptance of his firing but hours later was marshalling his cabinet appointees to resign with him so as to bring instability to the nation through vengeful and retrogressive personal decisions meant to punish the very same compatriots that he served.
However, by accepting the will imposed on him by his own party, Mbeki should have been ashamed to do, in South Africa, those things that the man he has always shielded refuses to do in Zimbabwe.

Like Mugabe, Mbeki does not seem to appreciate that civil servants are in government to serve the nation, not the person who appointed them to office.
Like Mugabe, Mbeki is trying to distabilise his country as punishment to the nation for having failed to execute his duties responsibly, both at home and abroad.
Mugabe taught him well.

While South Africans do not appear to be getting a better replacement, they have shown that in their country, there is still a semblance of democracy where public officials resign if and when they become tainted with scandal.
In that respect, Jacob Zuma himself should be nowhere near State House.
If Mbeki could listen and bend down to his people’s wishes and actually vacate State House, why the hell does he think Zimbabweans deserve anything less from a long serving mediocre leader who continues to occupy State house by default?
Why did Mbeki assure the subjugation of the Zimbabwean people for so long?
Mbeki should be ashamed of himself and, honestly, South Africans and Africa say ‘good riddance’.

But African dictators have a lifetime policy reserved for all of their disgraced and rejected fellow authoritarian presidents.
Some careless operative at SADC insisted that Mbeki, rejected by other countries as mediator and dumped by his own compatriots as State President, should continue mediating over the Zimbabwean crisis. But why would anyone say such a stupid thing?
Why should Zimbabweans continue to suffer because of Mbeki’s ineptitude?
Mbeki failed and watched our country sinking deeper into the abyss and, when he started his mediation talks, he literally encouraged the split within the MDC ranks, favouring a splinter group of Mugabe-leaning sell-outs over the mainstream MDC.
His so-called agreement signed in Harare two weeks ago has stalled and is on the verge of collapse and is now being used by Mugabe to humiliate the opposition and to thumb their noses at the world.

Now, since Mbeki demanded the exclusion of the media and prevented the participation of Zimbabwe’s civil society in the flawed talks that he chaired, he might want to tell us now what all those lengthy talks he chaired were all about.
Today, I am appalled that Mugabe and Tsvangirai are now haggling and sparring over cabinet posts. What were they discussing for all those months? Weren’t such issues as the allocation of cabinet posts of importance to a ‘government of national unity’?
And these misguided SADC and AU functionaries are insisting that the same failure who has, by dint of his diplomatic quiet, assisted Mugabe in ruining Zimbabwe, along with thousands of its nationals, should remain as mediator.
Like Koffi Annan, Mbeki could not even mediate his own survival in office or elsewhere. So they go for Kenya and Zimbabwe.
What a disgrace to Africa these African luminaries are.

And then, there is the MDC itself which has apparently become quite euphoric in that they believe that the sacking of Mbeki is to their advantage.
They feel that Mbeki’s sacking supposedly strengthens their hand.
How childish!
Tsvangirai, Chamisa, Biti and all their followers should do us a favour and recognize that they are not leaders to morons.
The MDC should wake up and stop taking people for granted. Mbeki’s departure does not add positive marks to the MDC. The MDC will not look better because someone else looks worse. The MDC has to fight for its own name, in its own right.
This party should wake up and work not only for the people but with the people.
They still have to explain to us why they left civil society behind and went into a dangerous and unworkable agreement with Mugabe. Now that they have problems, they want us to assist them to avoid blame.
Unless the MDC jumps out of this embarrassing and sorry arrangement, they are history.
They now stand in a queue waiting to be allocated positions by Mugabe, the man they defeated at the polls.
Mugabe plotted this and, slowly, it is becoming very clear who is in charge.

The heart of the matter is that if the MDC does not do something soon, the agreement they signed is going to destroy Tsvangirai and the party because the MDC is willing to ignore the mandate given them by the people and, instead, rush for positions in government.
Yes, Tsvangirai is the Prime Minister designate. But he won’t get any meaningful ministries or any power behind that throne.
While Tsvangirai is assembling with his group dishing out cabinet posts to each other, Mugabe is in New York and, on the strength of this agreement, can legitimately tell the world that ‘we have a deal and we are working with the opposition to put things right’.
Meantime, Tsvangirai nurses his ‘prime minister designate’ tag which gives him no authority nor brings any relief to the people.
There is an over abundance of lawyers in his party, why did he sign that document?
Now, instead of these people working for the country, they are going to be tied up and embroiled in fights over positions as they all want to stamp their personal authority on a country that belongs not to them but to the people.
I am Tanonoka Joseph Whande and that, my compatriots, is the sorry way it is today, September 25, 2008.