Of Masochists and Apologists

Robert "The Solution" Mugabe, the dictator of Zimbabwe, and his wife, Grace, seen here being welcomed by Muamar Gaddafi of Libya to the African Union Summit in Sirte. Nothing has changed for "The Solution", who retains all his powers while the Prime Minister rather pitifully grasps at straws, such claiming credit for the skeletal US$950 million loan from the Chinese. (By the way, a diplomat here in Harare tells us the Chinese do not like giving aid, they prefer to advance "30 year loans", which they never demand back).

The Masochistic MDC-T and Tsvangirai apologists are at it again. They have a knack for painting themselves into a corner, together with their leader.

First it was the saluting thing, when truckloads of MDC-T supporters drove around Harare on February 11, when the Prime Minister was sworn in, singing, "Muchamusaluta chete Morgan". Meaning "You will salute Morgan whether you like it or not."

We know how that turned out.

The National Security Council is still to meet and the service chiefs pointedly tell the Prime Minister that they do not report to a Prime Minister, but to a Commander in Chief, one Robert "The Solution" Mugabe.

The apologists then turn around when this happens and say they do not care about salutes?! So why compose songs about them?

They say they do not care about SADC but at the first sign of an arrest or a refusal to swear one of theirs onto the Gravy Train, they scream that SADC must do something.

When SADC does nothing they say they never expected them to do anything anyway.

I wish they would all make up their minds.

This time, perhaps in desperation at the failure of the MDC-T and MDC-M to make a single policy, they are now frantically trying to claim credit for the skeletal aid coming in from China.

Of course it is ignorance, because even Tendai Biti himself told reporters as recently as last weekend that he had nothing to do with the US$950 million from China. Biti says it was negotiated starting a couple of years back by Gideon Gono and the Look East crowd.

Still, MDC-T apologists insist on waving this about as an MDC- triumph. When it does finally sink in just how utterly ridiculous they look aping a line disowned even by the MDC-T Secretary-General, they will say they do not care about that as well. Of that we can be certain.

They will then almost certainly turn to deriding the very same figure of US$950 million which, while they still think can be credited to the MDC-T, they are praising to high heaven as the Fountain of Zimbabwe's Economic Youth.

We can only look on bemused as they tie themselves into knots.

Perhaps one of these days they will realise that they should not set up their expectations on the basis of their wishes. It is easier and much more lucrative in the long run to instead boast about how the aid, once it arrives, is expertly utilised by the Finance Minister and PM to alleviate the suffering of people and inject policy and capital stimuli into the private sector in order to reignite investments.

But wait.

They can not claim any such credit, because no evidence of it exists. The PM and Finance Minister are instead operating a hunter-gatherer government, where they hunt only to feed their over sized and bloated civil service family.

How anyone can still insist that this Inclusive Impediment to the people's hopes be allowed to stay intact a day longer is beyond the grasp of the sane.