Mugabe Abducts Tsvangirai's Pastor

While Tsvangirai is busy defending Mugabe and saying he is not the problem but the solution, that solution is harassing Tsvangirai supporters and arresting his spiritual adviser. But MDC-T supporter say Tsvangirai must stay on, like an abused wife sticking around for "her children". He should walk. He paralysed Mugabe last year and this year, for seven months. Yet he thinks he has no option?

Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai's pastor has been abducted and disappeared, according to an MDC press release published by SW Radio.

It must be those hardliners and "residual elements" that we keep being told about.

Almost certainly, MDC-T supporters will defend all this, asking the world what they expect Tsvangirai to do. Do we not know that there is 30 years of entrenched rule to fight against and so on.

Of course, this marriage is on the rocks. But we are told time and again that the groom has been a bachelor for thirty years and is not used to having a wife lounging around the house. So we must understand when the groom beats up the wife and kicks out her out of the house now and again.

We must urge the wife stay on even as the husband abducts her close relatives and gives them hell. And so on.

There are saner voices, however, who keep telling the Prime Minister that he can not achieve anything under these conditions. All hope that he has any power and can eat away at the entrenched evil within ZANU PF must be dismissed as the talk of clueless children.

Tsvangirai is indeed eating away at his reputation and his brand by remaining in this marriage. He really should walk and stay out of this government. But the comforts are too many for the MDC-T to take this principled stand.

They are failing to influence anything within the corridors of power. Tsvangirai, if the truth be told, holds the same authority and influence in this government as does the lowest ranking ZANU PF Deputy Minister.

As a senior ZANU PF member said to me yesterday: "Tsvangirai is now just part of of the ZANU PF succesion politics dynamics. He just leads another ZANU PF faction that is fighting to succeed Mugabe now, not an opposition party. And those seeking to succeed Mugabe within ZANU PF must show the old man some respect, or they risk losing favour."

But the title also appeals and he is willing to sacrifice himself for it.

There is no benefit to staying in a government when your own policemen (remember MDC-T supporters writing on this very blog that times had changed and all policemen, the lower ranks at least, were behind Tsvangirai and would refuse to obey anti-MDC-T orders if Tsvangirai got into government) are abducting and jailing your supporters.

Do you still call yourself Prime Minister under the circumstances?

Gandi Mudzingwa, Jestina Mukoko and Roy Bennett still face charges of plotting to overthrow Mugabe.

Gono and Tomana, responsible for money and for the prosecution of MDC-T activists, remain at their posts, as do Permanent Secretaries and ambassadors.

Although we were told Governors and Roy Bennett will be sworn in, there is no sign yet that this is about to happen. ZANU PF Governors still sit in their offices, presiding over the ruining party's patronage system.

And now a man of the cloth has been abducted for being the spiritual adviser to the Prime Minister.

Only in Zimbabwe, eh?

For those MDC-T supporters who can not think for themselves and are now defending the untenable position of Morgan Tsvangirai to stick around in government, here are some questions:

You seriously think that the MDC will advance the interests of democracy by dining on the hopes and dignity of MDC-T supporters and officials with Mugabe?

You think anything will come out of this moribund MDC-PF government just because Tsvangirai says there is no option?

I assure you, no MDC-T supporter will answer any of this, because they not been fed lines to say by their party yet. And they can not think for themselves to see just how untenable all this is.

But there  is an option.

Mugabe failed to form a government from June to February this year without the MDC-T. That shows you how muchclout Tsvangirai had back then.

Mugabe was paralysed, could not make a move because the MDC was refusing to throw him a lifeline.

This state of affairs has not changed, except that now it is Tsvangirai who insists that he needs Mugabe more than Mugabe needs him.

If Tsvangirai walked away today and pointed to all these violations, Mugabe would be on the ropes again.

But, of course, he is now "Father" to the MDC-T and they are not going to put him in a fix.

Mugabe is as happy as pig in mud. And, as I told you last week, he is going to get even more daring, his behaviour more atrocious, because he knows no matter what he does, the taste of fake power is too sweet for the MDC-T to turn their backs on.