The Sunday News
Meluleki Moyo
ADDED to serving as credible alternatives to the ruling party, offering competition which is healthy in ensuring better service delivery and preventing complacency by the sitting Government, the opposition’s main role is to question the Government of the day and hold them accountable to the public, challenge the policies of the Government and produce different policies where appropriate.
However, this can only happen when there are tangible deficiencies, failure to which the opposition parties find themselves doing nothing but lying idle, doing nothing apart from awaiting their demise which is usually followed by failure to book a place in the memory of the electorate.
Overzealous ordinary citizens, devoid of any knowledge of the socio-economic and political dynamics, in the name of citizen or civil activism ignorantly highjack the show, criticising the Government of the day, protesting and in vain, calling for boycotts and preferentially patronising businesses, among a plethora of other protests. Amid all this, the economy is crippled the more.
From the lone figures at the so-called Occupy Africa Unity Square cutting across to the Beitbridge protesters, not forgetting the Tajamuka/ Sesijikile (probably from being aligned with opposition parties) group causing a stir and scenes in the Harare Central Business District, disrupting public order and the clerical Prayer Network Zimbabwe which challenged the national pledge, I have in my possession a video footage from one activist of #THISFLAG campaign and I can’t resist the recurring temptation of bursting out in laughter as I find the content ridiculous and hoax. Clad in the national flag, the youthful activist says:
“We are hearing about uniforms for teachers, nhai vakomana murikumbony’ nyoitei ko? Vashaya here hembe ma-teachers, do they not have any of their own clothes? Have they complained to you that we need to be identified as teachers? No, they haven’t. What they need is to get paid, they need salaries, they need to be in schools, they need to be motivated, to be working, and they have got their own clothes. Ok, you tell me, achabhadara ma-uniform iwawo ndiani? Who’s going to pay? You are going to charge the very teachers for that? Iye achitadza kutenga chingwa, they can’t even buy bread and now you want to force them to buy a uniform . . . You are kidding me, you are joking”, continues the activist before urging fellow Zimbabweans to spread the gross ignorance.
Seriously, whoever said teachers will have uniforms and which teacher is not at school? May a teacher who has not been paid enough even to buy bread please stand up. Probably digitalisation, which has apparently shrunk the world into a single global village, is making people confuse Zimbabwe with other countries under the sun.
Added to the ill-informed opposition to the bond notes which are bent at nothing besides solving the liquidity crunch, the protesters, failing to understand or not choosing to understand the root of Zimbabwe’s economic problems demand the stepping down from power of a democratically and legitimately elected Head of State before his tenure in office ends.
The restriction on imports is part of the crucial policy of protectionism. Protectionism is whereby a country puts some restrictions on imports, promoting the growth of its nascent and infant industries, cushioning them from threats posed by external industries and thereby promoting industrial growth and creating employment in the manufacturing industries in the nexus. One of the reasons why the British government opted for a Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland in 1953 was the desire to cut economic ties of dependency with South Africa and protect its industries against the Afrikaner government which had embarked on a clear Protectionist Policy which had affected Southern Rhodesia’s beef and tobacco exports to that country.
With literacy levels soaring at more than 92%, the Zimbabwean electorate would definitely prefer a leader, not an opportunist, a leader who puts the people first and self-interests NEVER. Zimbabwean politics have proved not to be a playground for the self-centered and myopic, probably the very reason why Zimbabwe is littered with graves of opposition parties, some which failed and still fail, even to book a place in our memory.
There is nothing as ridiculous and alarming as when in ignorance, arrogant fly-by-night activists take over from perpetually flip-flopping and inefficient opposition parties, notorious for being preserves for political home seekers.
How about a glance at this sincere long overdue post GNU confession by Samuel Sipepa Nkomo, the former GNU Minister of Water Resources Development and Management under the Tsvangirai-led MDC-T? Don’t forget to read between the lines.
“In my experience working with the President . . . that man called Robert Gabriel Mugabe is brilliant, he knows what he is doing, he strategises and is a planner . . . He may be sitting there and you think he is sleeping but no, he is attentive, alert and a good listener”.
Then if that’s the case, why not work with good planners and strategists if you mean your words by improving the welfare of Zimbabweans? Or was the confession an attempt to book a Zanu-PF ticket after the collapse of the GNU. Like many egocentric opposition leaders, Samuel Sipepa Nkomo went on to identify himself with some grouping calling itself the
People’s Democratic Party (PDP), joining it from the MDC Renewal team, itself an offshoot of the MDC-T.
Elton Mangoma, another rebel from the MDC-T, went on to form the Renewal Democrats of Zimbabwe (RDZ). A move which the MDC Renewal Team spokesperson, Jacob Mafume aptly described as that of a power hungry individual, although he himself was throwing stones from a glass house.
Tendai Biti’s People’s Democratic Party (PDP) on the other hand did not mince its words in promising the electorate nothing but HOPE BUILD on aid, further promising to ARREST the electorate to dependency rather than self-sufficiency. Launching the party, Biti sounded boastful, saying if only he could show the people his email so they could see for themselves the amounts the international community is promising his party. But Zimbabwe needs sustainable solutions not aid.
In as much as political bodies are not immune to splits, I find the case of the MDC appalling. The MDC arguably carried the seeds of its own destruction from its foundation. It was a creation of diverse and desperate groups under the tutelage of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) back in 1999.
The white commercial farmers wanted to consolidate their grip on the land, yet the Rhodies could not be equally yoked to African peasants, neither could they be yoked to the urban workers and African students in the long run, except in a horse-rider relationship. Hence, from the word go, self-interests took precedence and that cancer hasn’t been cured. It still eats.
The MDC first split in 2005 after Morgan Tsvangirai had a fall-out with his colleagues (who could not miss an opportunity to be in power) over participating in the senatorial elections, crying foul and citing an uneven ground and lack of free and fair elections in Zimbabwe. The same sentiments usually echoed by the international community (the West) each time an opposition party loses an election, thereby asserting the solid fact that the ever fragmenting MDC institution is a western creation, ignoring the fact that genuine leaders emerge from the people and chosen by the people.
During the Government of National Unity (GNU), the MDC-T led by Tsvangirai, who at his age, could be having liberation credentials if he indeed has love for Zimbabwe, as he claims, and the other MDC formation demonstrated their lack of commitment. The MDCs felt they had finally found a political home. To show their thirst for power, the MDCs even went to the extent of joining the Zanu-PF campaign of calling for the removal of sanctions, to the annoyance of their western paymasters. This further brought to a halt the west’s criticism of Zanu-PF and subsequently heralding the drying up of the MDC financial coffers.
Blinded by euphoria during the GNU, the MDCs representatives, like ostriches, buried their heads in the sand whilst Zanu-PF was down to the people, fulfilling its mandate and at the same time flexing its muscles for the next elections. The MDCs only woke up to bruises, disempowered by the Zanu-PF resounding victory in 2013. This marked the final straw to the MDC-T as other members felt Tsvangirai had developed a frontal cortex disability and had to step down, but his unquenchable thirst for power and failure to accept perpetual defeat by President Mugabe got the better of him, resulting in further splits.
According to a June 2012 survey by the Mass Public Opinion Institute, between 2010 and 2012, the MDC-T support base declined from 38 to 20 percent. The MDC-T indeed showed it’s blindly following supporters, who already hold numerous
“Certificates in Disappointment”, its true colours: Complacency, greed, incompetence and laxity. Future generations indeed have an interesting history and case studies on “failure”. If only it was possible to stay forever young.
Then came the beleaguered Welshman Ncube-led MDC which achieved nothing save for haplessly witnessing a mass exodus of figures, abdicating from the seemingly hopeless political home, with an imminent dysfunction and devoid of the sought after opportunities, just like Simba Makoni’s Mavambo/ Kusile / Dawn, the party has been invisible in the National Assembly.
These parties have proved nothing but mere noisemakers barking from the terraces.
The latest outfit, led by the deposed Vice-President, Joice Mujuru, who like that biblical Miriam was struck with leprosy after she opposed Moses, the God chosen leader, she now languishes in isolation, struck with political leprosy. With other disgruntled sour grapes, she now tries in vain, making frantic efforts to get out of the cold on the peripheries of the ruling Zanu-PF party. With a manifesto said to be premised on the basis of BUILD, which at face value, seems nothing but BUILDing castles in the air. Zimbabwe’s only HOPE is built on nothing but sustainability, embedded on our human and natural resources.
At the end of the day, the question is: If the opposition parties are indeed concerned with the plight of the people, why can’t they complement and corroborate the present solutions which seek to revive Zimbabwe at an indigenous level, instead of squabbling as they probably envy President Mugabe and hoping to personally offer solutions to Zimbabwe’s problems.
With regards to the much hyped coalition by the opposition parties, let’s take our seats and watch the drama as it unfolds, bearing in mind that nothing plus nothing can never result in something!
