Tinaye Agere
Retired Major Action Mandingo
OVER the past few days, Zimbabweans have been treated to what political scientists call political grandstanding. Two CCC leaders, Nelson Chamisa and Job Sikhala, have been busy at work, trying to raise emotional support among their supporters.
Renowned writers Justin Tosi and Brandon Warmke, in their book “Grandstanding: The Use and Abuse of Moral Talk”, use the term moral grandstanding to describe similar behaviour, where people exaggerate emotions and opinions in a public forum to gain social status, especially among those who agree with them.
According to researchers, grandstanding contributes to significant problems for politics in democracies.
Social problems
Researchers observe that political grandstanders tend to support expressive or symbolic policies that seem to straightforwardly address a problem, but are actually ineffective.
More interestingly, researchers add that grandstanders sometimes have reason not to solve social problems at all, as doing so may eliminate opportunities to advance their interests.
Instead of using political grandstanding, some writers use the term political posturing, which, in very simple terms, means use of speech or actions to gain political support through emotional or effective appeals.
It particularly applies to appeals that are seen as hallow or lacking political or economic substance, or to superficial appeals that may not reflect a person’s genuine ideology or political preferences.
Looking closely at the way Chamisa and Sikhala have been behaving lately, one is justified to conclude they have mastered the art of political grandstanding.
Fortunately, only gullible Zimbabweans fell for their tricks.
Chamisa knows Sikhala is furious because he has failed to stand by him and his family.
A few weeks ago, Sikhala came out guns blazing, accusing Chamisa of abandoning him and his family. Reports say, at the time, Sikhala’s family was on the verge of starvation.
Seeing that Skihala was breathing fire from behind prison walls, out-of-sorts Chamisa thought of a plan.
Whenever he got the opportunity to address his party supporters, Chamisa would tell them he had tried to reach out to President Mnangagwa to look into Sikhala’s issue.
He repeatedly told his supporters that President Mnangagwa had snubbed his overtures.
Of course, some of his supporters fell hook, line and sinker for this balderdash. Those with sober political lenses saw that Chamisa was just grandstanding. He was playing games with the people’s emotions because he knew Sikhala’s support base was growing in the party.
Sikhala had a case to answer before the courts and so there was no way President Mnangagwa, with his background as a lawyer, was going to intervene. Chamisa claims to be an advocate, and, surely, he knows something about separation of powers in Government.
There was no way the Executive arm of Government was going to tell the Judiciary how to carry out its duties, but still Chamisa went ahead with political posturing. Sadly, some of his supporters actually thought he was being honest and sincere.
President Mnangagwa ignored him completely because he knows that “nyika haivakwi negrandstanding”.
Then came Sikhala.
He took political grandstanding to another level, after his sentencing at the courts.
Before he was arrested last year, Sikhala was always a master at grandstanding, making all sorts of threats against the Second Republic.
Some of us, who have known him from his days at the University of Zimbabwe, knew this was reckless bravado because deep down, “Wiwa”, as Sikhala calls himself, is a coward.
Ranting and raving
After months behind bars, the supposedly firebrand Sikhala was gone. It suddenly hit him that there was no way a mouse could fight an elephant and win. He turned his anger against Chamisa because in him, he found a politician at his level.
And then came the day after his sentencing. Sikhala gave a speech, ranting and raving about his “innocence”.
He tried to sound brave and send fear into the hearts of those he considers enemies, but it was all hot air.
He even dragged Nelson Mandela into his speech, thinking he could elevate himself to some important prisoner.
Chamisa and Sikhala should go back to the drawing board.
Their grandstanding antics failed to raise emotions and their social status. In fact, their antics were embarrassing. Politics is never for cartoon characters!
Online Reporter