The Sunday News
If you are one of those people who grew up in the ghetto where ganging up on other people’s children to beat them up; only for your squad to come back with their tails between their knees, then this one is for you. When I grew up, I had a torrid time going to church because passing near Intemba bus stop in Pumula was a horrible experience for anyone who was a prefect at my primary school. I think at that time, hooliganism was a primary school culture and any school offender would hunt you down if ever they picked your track. I can tell you for a fact that you were not attacked by the offender alone, the whole block, friends of friends, high school dropout brothers and sometimes their sisters, all longing for your neck, all because of the excellence that propelled you to the responsibility of enforcing school rules. For those of you who have been in my position before, I am certain you relate to my plight very well.
Buyani one -one
The biggest sign of weakness I picked from my school enemies and their cronies was that they accepted my excellence, power and authority to the extent that they couldn’t face me alone. At one time I told them “buyani one one” and you can imagine what such bravery sent down their spines. On that day I ceased to run from them ever, the power I wielded was the undeniable proof that they are weak individuals and anyone who associates with them was and to me up to this day, is still weak. You are wondering why I am gloating with my bullied triumph; well, it makes a perfect illustration of Zimbabwe’s opposition. They are not man enough to think, challenge and compete with Zanu-PF “one -one”. They all have admitted that Zanu-PF is powerful, excellent, and “anikhonkarebho”. When they failed as splits 2008, they attempted to coalesce in 2013 and repeatedly failed, now they are reconsidering it again-I tell you they are flogging a dead horse.
Coalition: A loose political biscuit
A loose biscuit is the only surviving remnant of a boarding school trunk’s contents, if not a green bar soap. If ever there is the last piece of food any boarder can be left with, it’s a loose biscuit. It’s a confetti of biscuit brands, broken, embarrassing to gobble in public because a piece that should have cream won’t be have any, perhaps its cream is now smeared on a charhons crunch, the best way to eat it is munching under your six months’ unwashed blankets when its lights off. In the ghetto we called the powder “inkumane”. That is the state of Zimbabwe’s opposition parties and their idea of coalition. It’s dangled to the masses but we all know that it’s embarrassing, because even the CODE principals do not understand how a coalition operates, different types of coalitions, their bargaining strengths and what happens if their “god” grants them their wish of “removing President Robert Mugabe”. This I say because I met the vice President of PDP who used the phrase “if god permits we will remove Mugabe…”. It dawned to me that it’s all personality politics, to them, their goal is not Zanu-PF, and it’s the President they want to remove.
The man who fires blanks
I have utmost respect for the man as a lawyer, certainly, to me he is the best barrister I have met. But I wonder how he found himself masquerading as a representative of the masses with nothing more than a morsel of political stamina. As I listened to the man explaining the state of coalition in Zimbabwe, it registered to me that not in the present Zimbabwe will a coalition that can compete with Zanu-PF exist. Surprisingly I am bored. Why? Because next year’s elections will be a whitewash. When Kucaca Phulu, the Vice president of the Elton Mangoma led People’s Democratic Party spoke, I assure you, you would sob once or twice for the big man struggling to thrust a single argument on the existence and possibility of a coalition.
You see, Kucaca is a very intelligent man who just found himself in a bad space associating with the crew. I don’t want to believe my grandmother’s words – “show me your friends and I will tell you who you are”. I think they are overrated when it comes to this man. He probably is the most intelligent of all in PDP but he surrounds himself with erroneous company. He doesn’t believe in what he says or he doesn’t know what he says, at least one of that is true. He struggled to fabricate enthusiasm.
This is the Vice president of a political party who has aspirations to fit in the shoes of the second most powerful office on the land and has no grip with dates, events and position of the political environment. Oh please, for such a man who can recite the criminal codification act as if it’s a nursery tongue twister, failing to recall, wait, it’s not recalling, he had no idea when Simba Makoni contested, his continuous confusion of whether those elections were in 2005 or 2008 distorted all the information. In chronology, if you miss dates, it ceases to be history, it becomes lies. There is nothing like wrong history; it’s a lie or you are an ignoramus masquerading as a fundi. At that moment I believed that if the second highest office of a party is this blank, what of the others, I mean the followers. As intelligent as Kucaca is, if he is so misinformed, what more of Mangoma. In such spaces, Mr “vice president” I advise that you ask your youth league to represent you. I am sure they know better about the politics of this country, they would not confuse voter registration age with age of consent like you did, we have always registered to vote at 18 not 16. Oh well, I understand why he kept on confusing those two, it’s an issue for another day.
The disillusioned bitterness
Fanon says, each generation must, out of relative obscurity discover its mission, fulfil it, or betray it. Surely this generation has chosen the latest, betrayal. The amount of confusion in the opposition is betrayal like that of Dannganga the mad dog. I read this story long back about a mad dog, it would bark at flies, bite itself and meow like a cat when people came. Hilarious as it is, I found it fitting our opposition. I shall always refer to them as “our” you don’t forsaken your special kid just because they are “special” you need to show them some “love” and that they are wrong.
So our special kid-the opposition was represented by Both Morgan Tsvangirayi and Kucaca Phulu last week in Bulawayo. Well as I have said, Kucaca fired blanks, he had no idea of what he was talking about, but let me hasten to refer to what he said in relation to his former master- Morgan who is more of an overfed baby who needs his political diapers changed. There are two camps in the coalition debate, one is CODE due to sign its agreement and one is the “grand coalition” which I choose to call the Big Brother cast, well and then there is NERA made up of midgets, don’t mind those, they are purses.
Big brother Zimbabwe: The rise of ultimate failure
Morgan Tsvangirayi recently declared in Bulawayo at a consultative meeting that he can only engage PDP and CODE if they approach him because he doesn’t approach briefcase parties. Phulu on Wednesday confidently said they are ready to accommodate the Big Brother cast (MDC-T, MDC and ZimPF) only if they approach them. At this point, Big Brother and CODE will never coalesce as long as the egos exist. Remember, Phulu reportedly wanted to be Mayor in Bulawayo in 2013 and the pendulum swung somewhere else and Tsvangirayi is to blame for that so there is no intersection whatsoever. Since Tsvangirayi wants to swallow the “briefcase” parties and wants them to crawl back to him, there is no hope for CODE and Big Brother marrying because the “small boys” think they are big and they want him to come to them. As of now and up to 2018, two things are possible, there will be more than 20 parties contesting or three coalitions against one formidable indomitable Zanu-PF, which means, Zanu-PF is winning by a landslide margin. One thing coalition zealots forget is the aftermath? In Senegal, Abdoulaye Wade supported by a section of the opposition parties as a coalition candidate polled only 30 percent of votes in the first round of the 2000 presidential elections against 41.3 percent garnered by the incumbent president Abdou Diouf. In the second round, Wade enlisted the support of the other key opposition leader, Moustapha Niasse. Once a coalition, however, Wade strengthened his Senegalese Democratic Party, making it an invincible monolith. Because the coalitions won’t win, post the elections, a lot of parties will lose their supporters to other parties and in this case, Big Brother Morgan intends to swallow the “briefcase supporters”. And again, Kucaca doesn’t see that-he fired another blank there.
Unpacking the briefcase contents
The sad truth to you opposition fellows who are reading this is that you have no structure and you don’t have structures in place to be politically viable. Tsvangirayi is not wrong to some extent, all of you are satchels with him as a suitcase and you disgust us, you make a mockery of the Zimbabwean electoral space. A party such as PDP was asked where people can get their membership cards and the vice president of the party admitted that they don’t have an office yet.
Micheal Mhlanga is a research and strategic communication specialist and is currently serving Leaders for Africa Network (LAN) as the Programmes and Public Liaison Officer.
