Is The Gun Tsvangirai Using To Shoot Himself In The Foot Loaded
Morgan Tsvangirai arrives at Chinhoyi Stadium on Saturday to address supporters who had gathered for the 10th anniversary of the formation of the MDC. Ten years: which also means, according to the MDC constitution, which restricts the president of the party to two five-year terms, Tsvangirai must now step down. But, like Mugabe, it appears the Prime Minister is refusing to go. Handiende!
Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai told a gathering in Chinhoyi (which has gone for some weeks without water and is seeing an increase in the ancient, embarassing disease of cholera) that his and Mugabe's "Inclusive" government is working fine.
"There is nothing Mugabe does without me approving," he said.
Really?
What about Gideon Gono? The appointment of permanent secretaries? The gutting and disembowelling of Nelson Chamisa's Information Communication Technology ministry? The continued prosecution of MDC activists including Tsvangirai's very close aide, Gandi Mudzingwa? The continued arrests of his supporters?
Was it not only two weeks ago that a policeman told the MDC-T MP for Chipinge, while arresting him at a funeral of an MDC-T supporters to "go and report to your Prime Minister"?
This was with his approval?
All of these things Mugabe is doing, and is Tsvangirai saying that they are being done with his approval?
It appears so.
You see, the fact that the Prime Minister refuses to face reality, buries his head in the sand like an ostrich and insists that there actually is such a thing as a "coalition" running Zimbabwe is the reason why this government is going to fail.
What exactly has Tsvangirai seen to convince himself that things are moving in the right direction? Mugabe's continued intransigence is a good sign and augurs well for the future?
MDC supporters are being arrested in Mbare, Buhera, Chipinge, Mt Darwin and many other centres in Zimbabwe. He thinks this is moving in the right direction?
Did Mugabe not tell Tsvangirai as recently as Monday last week that he (Mugabe) is the one in charge and can make any changes and appointments and gutting of ministries as he sees fit?
Yet the Prime Minister tells gullible suppporters in Chinhoyi that there is nothing Mugabe does without his approval.
The danger is that he will be believed, and his supporters will start thinking that their own continued persecution and prosecution is being done with the approval of the leader of their party.
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Meantime, can the Minister of Finance get to the bottom of the four or five buckets of diamonds that are in the vaults of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe?
Whose are they?
What are they being used for?
Seeing as a few are being sold at a time to finance a parrarel government being run by Generals and ZANU PF, is this not proof positive that Mugabe is intent on ensuring that the MDC-T finds its own sources of funds to run government, while the money from the Chiadzwa diamond fields is used to bolster and strengthen ZANU PF.
At the same time, we must not forget that some of that money if finding its way into the pockets of individuals.
Clearly, the MDC-T is not in control, otherwise they would have known about those buckets of diamonds and investigated them.
Or perhaps they do and, seeing as they are totally powerless when it comes to the Generals, the Defence Forces and the entrenched interests of ZANU PF, there really is nothing much they can do except look the other way?
Which would of course, mean that they are not in any way part of this government.
Let us face facts: MDC-T and MDC-M (both PF) are nothing but the errand boys of ZANU PF, being sent overseas to get the finances to resurrect the economy.
Beyond that, they can not claim to be a part of this government. Beyond that, they absolutely no power to do anything.
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And at the same rally in Chinhoyi, Tsvangirai basically admitted defeat on the continued land invasion controversy. His bluster of previous weeks, threatening to "arrest farm invaders" (he has as much authority to order the police to arrest anyone as he does to order the sun to stop shining) has now given way to reality.
Tsvangirai told the rally that his government will now focus on those who have multiple farms (they are all ZANU PF and will tell him to take a hike) as well as those who are not producing anything on their farms (ditto).
The issue of continued invasions has now been put to the side. Now Tsvangirai has set himself up for embrassment on another front.
I just hope the gun he is using to shoot himself repeatedly in the foot is not loaded.
I'm not sure that Morgan Tsvangirai and the MDC have a clear strategy to counter the infidelity of Mugabe and Zanu PF in this marriage. Why does the MDC think this arrangement can work only if they are willing to prostrate themselves before Zanu PF in supplication?
ReplyDeleteI think they're seriously undermining themselves by giving Mugabe and Zanu the semblance of power and authority. I say 'semblance' because even though Mugabe's authority is still constitutionally enshrined, we all know it is worth no more than hot air since his position is really underpinned by nothing other than the GPA and the MDC's willingness to subscribe to it.
In that sense, why does the MDC not at least show themselves to be wielding real political authority as given to it by the voters at the last elections? What is stopping them from confidently and consistently talking up their values and how, in the final victory over the dictatorship, punishment for transgressions against the law and the rights of citizens will be dispensed swiftly? After the March 2008 elections, there is a sense in Zimbabwean politics of things having moved beyond the dictatorship's control. The regional outrage at the conduct of the June 27 elections can only mean there will be no appetite for excusing such egregious conduct again should Mugabe's successors try to repeat the same strategy of retaining power. Why, even this thing after June 27 wasn't salvageable outside of a power-sharing arrangement. The SADC or AU never ventured to entertain any arrangement that only had Zanu PF in power after June 27. In a sense you could say there's now a point beyond which regional diplomacy cannot be expected to cover up violations of electoral conduct. June 27 was one such and Zanu could only be rescued by enlisting the participation of the victims of its violence and treachery.
And so given this scenario, I'm at a loss as to why the MDC does not seek to hammer home to all those so-called hardliners that the major shift in power relations in Zimbabwean politics brought about by the March elections can only be completed rather than reversed in future elections and that their comeuppance will surely come.
It's a pity our politics is always about who gets what; it's about the spoils of power. In my view it would have been infinitely more attractive to have some of the MDC's big guns deliberately stay out of the unity government so that the party remains strong and focussed rather than have its agenda dictated by the imperatives of the power-sharing government. Having every senior figure in the compromise government stunts party policy and party clarity on matters of its own values and principles. having senior figures outside helps to ensure that the party holds its members in the GPA to account on the basis of party policy and principle. As it is, everyone is just drifting in the wind of this inconvenient marriage, to be dumped wherever the draught lands them!