The Sunday News
Vincent Gono, Features Editor
THE dead horse theory that originated from the tribal wisdom of the Dakota Indians and passed from generation to generation states simply and logically that, when you discover that you are riding a dead horse, the best way is to dismount.
However, in modern business, politics and government a whole range of far more advanced strategies are employed such as buying a stronger whip, changing riders, arranging to visit other countries to see how others ride dead horses, doing a productivity study to see if lighter riders would improve the dead horse’s performance.
Other strategies also include re-classifying the dead horse as “living impaired”, appointing a committee to study the dead horse, providing additional funding and or training to increase the dead horse’s performance, harnessing several dead horses together to increase the speed and lowering the standards so that dead horses can be included among others.
Although the theory comes simple and commonsensical the modern strategies grafted to it makes clear the denial of the painful fact that the horse is dead.
And the theory rings true of Zimbabwean oppositional politics at least ahead of next year’s elections with an evident leadership vacuum in the crumbling grand coalition probably caused by Mr Morgan Tsvangirai’s ill health.
The opposition political parties in their fragmented multiplicity might have realised that they are riding a dead horse but they do not want to dismount maybe for reasons of political expediency.
Some have changed riders while others have conveniently harnessed several dead horses in a coalition that has largely been seen as of a coalition of failed and unmarketable political ramshackles that would only add fun and drama on the local political scene.
That the opposition is dead is there for all to see and witnessed by their invisibility making it unimaginable that it is now a few months to next year’s election.
Confusion continues to reign supreme as more strategies are employed by the opposition to ensure the dead horse competes politically with reports that National People’s Party leader Dr Joice Mujuru and Tendai Biti’s People’s Democratic Party have dumped the grand coalition project that included the two MDCs.
On the national political platform only Zanu-PF seems to be doing something on the ground. It has oiled its machine and is ready to roll with its spokesperson who is also Minister of Information, Media and Broadcasting Services Ambassador Simon Khaya Moyo reaffirming the party’s state of preparedness.
“We are not worried about what other parties are doing. We are preparing the party ahead of elections. The President has been holding Youth Interface Rallies and the response has been there for all to see.
“We have however, told our members not to start campaigning ahead of the party’s primary elections. We are going to announce that most probably after the special December congress,” he said.
The opposition political parties have forgetfully gotten overexcited, in fact too immersed in Zanu-PF politics. Zanu-PF has however, become the proverbial python that catches its prey while it admires its movement, its drama filled internal regeneration.
And it does not require a class in village idiocy to realise and appreciate that the ruling party that has oiled its machinery and engaged the election gear with eight provinces so far having gotten the opportunity to meet President Mugabe in his Youth Interface Rallies save for Harare and Bulawayo.
Any politically conscious person would agree that Zanu-PF despite internal political abrasions is still the strongest party in the country.
The popularity of Zanu-PF has long been confirmed by Afrobarometer — a pan African non-partisan research network in a survey. Opposition politicians have however, with a veiled bitterness, been falling on each other to discredit the survey, much to their own detriment.
The report from the survey suggests that even if the elections were to be called today, the ruling party would have a clean sweep without any sweat from any opposition political party.
It says the 2018 elections are already in Zanu-PF’s bag and urged the “big tent” coalition partners to focus on 2023. The predictions however, should not give too much complacency to Zanu-PF and incessant calls by President Mugabe for unity should be given heed to.
Opposition political parties are still trying to find themselves and are still playing each other dirty in the murky political coalition waters. And that their rise will be groggy and already too late to stop the Zanu-PF grave train is given.
And even if the coalition of all political parties in the country was to materialise yesterday, tomorrow or even now it will be defeated by a harem of politically conscious old maids if they are to stand for Zanu-PF.
Opposition political parties are not time conscious and their state of preparedness ahead of next year’s elections whose proclamation date remains the prerogative of the President is laughable. Some of the political parties are not known elsewhere outside the media that announced them.
Some are yet to be launched formally while some still have no structures in place. They probably think politics is kindergarten playground where seriousness is taboo or they are just run by political novices.
Some of the political parties, old and derelict as they are and well overdue for an appointment with the political scrap yard if not cemetery are grudgingly admitting that they indeed are riding a dead horse.
Even some in the main opposition who are realising the daunting challenge posed by Zanu-PF and appreciate the leadership vacuum and general lack of seriousness in their own party are said to be in talks with the ruling party to be accommodated.
They are dealing in fear that is driven by uncertainty. And fear has a habit of producing irrational behaviour that isn’t very easy to predict.
They are uncertain of their political future if they let the Zanu-PF gravy train passes. For it has become clear to them that Zanu-PF is far from limping as they were dreaming of which makes the internal political developments in the ruling party their concern too.
Most if not all were shocked by the attendance so far witnessed in President Mugabe’s ongoing Youth Interface Rallies. They are a real confirmation that the ruling party still hold its stake in the country’s political landscape.
The numbers shocked many out of their wit and made most political outfits develop sore feet in facing the electorate for fear of a failing attendance analogy.
The shambolic state of the opposition political parties is there for all to see. It is sad that more and more political parties and coalitions are being formed ostensibly to add to the ruckus and coalition façade whose grassroots support is less than zero.
It is also there for all to see that the opposition has failed to agree on the coalition terms, something that has led to more coalitions being formed. The much touted coalition is therefore likely to remain a pipedream. Its formation has been marred by internal party resistance from MDC-T’s top lieutenants who felt that it is not the MDC-T joining other parties but other parties joining it.
It has therefore reserved the right to set the conditions but like all opposition political parties its horse is dead too.
The coalition has therefore not yet gotten a safe harbour to anchor itself on both party and national political waters. Its boat is still rocking and the possibility of it capsizing can never be ruled out as agreements seem difficult, painful — almost impossible.
Reports are however, that the coalition issue could have died down a long time ago had it not been for the insistence of donors who have threatened to pull out if there was no coalition.
Sources in the parties claim that the donors have noted that no party in its monopolistic position will stand and win against Zanu-PF hence the continued call for a coalition that most MDC-T seniors are reportedly not very keen on.
Most coalition leaders seem to have realised they were riding a dead horse and have resigned themselves to a castaway political life of contentment with their own parties.
Little is said about Dr Nkosana Moyo. The verve that characterised his entry into politics died in quick motion and it looks like he is going to be lost hastily to history and the memory of him cast to the winds that weeps tirelessly down the unforgiving but forgetful politically rugged slopes.
The materialisation of a grand political coalition and the challenge that it will pose to Zanu-PF come next year is likely to remain a distant mythical political daydreamer’s imagination as the coalition itself is no longer fit to be called that.
