The Sunday News
Limukani Ncube
THE recent trip to the United Kingdom by MDC Alliance presidential candidate in the forthcoming elections, Mr Nelson Chamisa, all but exposed him to serious condemnation for his fantasy promises and lack of clarity.
Although his backers have been making frantic efforts to limit the damage by attacking those who called a spade a spade by pointing out that Mr Chamisa’s promises to the electorate “sound silly” and that the opposition politician lacked clarity on how to take the country forward, what remains is that the trip did more damage than good to the opposition. In fact, even the foreign media does not believe Mr Chamisa stands a chance in the ballot box against President Mnangagwa.
In the BBC Hard Talk television show aired on Friday, Mr Chamisa found himself mumbling when confronted with evidence of falsehoods which he told party followers at a rally when he claimed US President Donald Trump pledged $15 billion to his party in the event they won the election. He was forced to retract and insinuate he never said that, claiming he only said his delegation met with the “Trump administration” and not the President himself, but the take home from that discussion was that no such pledge was ever made. In addition, the TV presenter was more brazen, accusing Mr Chamisa of making “fantasy promises” and coming up with promises that “sound silly”.
In an insightful article, Brookings Institution fellow Jonathan Rauch describes why such deceptions by the likes of Mr Chamisa are common. He says in politics, hypocrisy and doublespeak are tools. They can be used nefariously, illegally or for personal gain, and that could be the reason why Mr Chamisa has been making all sorts of unrealistic promises. Widespread voter ignorance also incentivises another common type of political deception: lying about the nature of your policies in order to overstate benefits and conceal possible downsides (Ilya Somin, 2016). But the Zimbabwean electorate is not so ignorant or naïve, and Mr Chamisa and his backers know that, following a deluge of criticism he has been receiving of late.
And the criticism has not only been from fellow Zimbabweans alone, but foreigners who are just watching events in the Zimbabwean political scene with keen interest. Just last week as well, a UK academic Professor Diana Jeater described MDC Alliance president Mr Chamisa as out of depth and saying some “really dumb things”.
This was after Mr Chamisa had briefings with some political figures and also addressed some gatherings in the UK. In one of the meetings, Professor Jeater, who is a Professor of African History and has special interests in Zimbabwe, said Mr Chamisa failed to articulate how his party envisaged to serve the people of Zimbabwe if ever voted into power.
“The MDC Alliance is undergoing generational renewal. I had heard great things about (Mr) Chamisa as an orator. So I arrived expecting to be impressed and encouraged. Alas, I left unimpressed and discouraged. Overall, (Mr) Chamisa came across as out of his depth, over-excited about the idea of winning an election but failing to recognise the seriousness of what happens after the counting is finished. And he said some really dumb things: ‘Most of the people working in the NHS are Zimbabwean’. The independent parties registering to contest the election are mostly surrogate Zanu-PF fronts. ‘We will not be sidetracked by gender-violence issues’ and dumbest of all . . . Gender: That ‘Joke’ and (Mr) Chamisa’s failure to apologise for suggesting that speaking of women as chattels is a ‘funny’ way to respond to a question of what MDC Alliance will do if it loses the vote. His lack of apology implies a poor grasp of both gender and leadership,” said Prof Jeater on twitter.
Prof Jeater pointed out that Mr Chamisa “mapped out the five pillars of his programme: governance, economy, social rights, infrastructure and international relations, but failed to explain them.
“I like the call for Big Ideas not Big Men. But I didn’t get a strong sense of the transformation (Mr) Chamisa promises. Much of the programme seems reactive and retrogressive, boiling down to ‘we’re not Zanu’ (PF). As one questioner pointed out, it’s hard to identify MDC distinctives,” she wrote.
The rebuff from the UK academic came a few days after Vice-President General Constantino Chiwenga (Rtd) poured cold water on Mr Chamisa’s promises, which have been roundly condemned as childish. Mr Chamisa has also been going around the country making unrealistic promises, among them constructing airports at every rural home and coming up with bullet trains.
Vice-President Cde Chiwenga recently told delegates who graced the Zanu-PF manifesto and election campaign launch that the revolutionary party would resoundingly win as nothing stood in its way. Cde Chiwenga said elections presented the electorate with contending visions meant to transform the society, but Mr Chamisa was openly selling the voters dummies.
“The courted and concussed voter has to read, weigh and decide from a welter of competing visions. But visions are deeper and a more serious affair for transforming nations, impacting a people. Not childish dreams which excite rude passions, while not surviving even the most charitable scrutiny. We hear such child-like and childish talk designed to transform make-belief worlds fit for the painter’s canvas, never phases to be lived and enjoyed. Bullet trains! Spaghetti Roads! Rural Airports!
Cellphones for Animal Kingdoms! All such and much more crazy ideas to come.”
Cde Chiwenga went on: “Until we ask ourselves why pretenders who sell us such convoluted dummies cannot manage small traffic in our real-world cities and municipalities which they control and run! Why reach Bulawayo in 40 minutes when Harare workers can’t reach Kuwadzana in five hours? What open cans of spaghetti when potholes straddle single lane roads in the city centre? Shouldn’t these starry-eyed juvenile politicians take us to Mabvuku after a hard day’s work before they put us on “Apollo 11” to the Moon?”
Of note, the MDC-T run councils have failed on service delivery with several of its councillors being arrested and suspended on corruption charges. Giving a blow by blow account, Prof Jeater said Mr Chamisa’s arguments on governance were “very thin, mostly about elections, not what happens after.
Questioned on what MDC Alliance will do if electoral process reforms don’t meet all their demands. Response: we won’t boycott but we won’t accept result. How?”
A number of Zimbabweans also took to social media to castigate Mr Chamisa over his performance in the UK. However, writing on social media as well, Mr Chamisa claimed he had a great time in the UK.
He was also quoted in local newspapers castigating the UK government, which in the past seemed to take sides with the opposition, for changing stance and embracing President Emmerson Mnangagwa and his Government’s political and economic policies, which have nonetheless, been roundly applauded across the globe.
