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A day after orchestrating the clumsy suspension of the face of internal opposition against his continued leadership of defeated MDC-T, Morgan Tsvangirai was at Huruyadzo Shopping Centre in Chitungwiza for a rally.
We are confident that we correctly read the unspoken message he wanted to drive home by addressing his first public meeting at that venue after Friday’s suspension of deputy treasurer-general, Elton Mangoma. It was to assert his position as leader despite intensifying calls for him to quit. If the choice of the venue in the context of the tempest in the fading party was a coincidence, then it is a rare one.
“Huruyadzo” is Shona for “the biggest of them all,” “the champion” or “the most senior.” Therefore, the biggest, the champion and the most senior, Tsvangirai wanted his opponents to know, is him.
“If you don’t fall in line, be out of line,” he declared at Huruyadzo Shopping Centre on Saturday.
“I have not run out of manpower, but I am saying if you want to continue with the struggle for change, let’s remove Zanu PF, let’s work together. But if you do not want to work with me, you are free to leave.”
Tsvangirai spoke in an embarrassingly paternalistic tone reminiscent of former US President, George W Bush that “you are either with us, or with the enemy.”
A few days earlier, his secretary-general Tendai Biti, who covets Tsvangirai’s seat and is actively plotting against him working with Mangoma and others, had attacked the former trade unionist for his authoritarian approach to politics and tendencies to support and use violence. On Friday after Mangoma’s suspension had been formally announced, Biti reiterated that adverse appraisal in MDC-T and by extension, Tsvangirai.
Everyone has to agree with Tsvangirai, if you don’t, you are out of line. This is the approach he used in his failed calls for a united front against Zanu-PF just before July last year. He is the big man of local opposition politics, Huruyadzo and everyone must follow, quietly.
In his insatiable lust for power — never mind its emptiness after July 2013 — Tsvangirai is accelerating the demise of his party, and his own political fortunes.
No one is grieving over this. The millions whose lives have been rendered meaningless because of the impact of illegal sanctions he campaigned for will be happy that the man who caused their suffering is digging his own grave.
Tsvangirai may have thought orchestrating a suspension of Elton Mangoma was a show of strength, but in actual fact exposes his worst weaknesses, that of an unthinking person all round who sleepwalks to his own downfall.
We understand that by holding on, he is alienating himself from the donors who founded his party, and picked him to run it on their behalf. The British have made their point, so have the Americans. At the weekend, one of the single biggest donors to MDC-T, billionaire George Soros advised Tsvangirai to resign.
But the man is prepared to forge ahead hoping that he would assert his authority on MDC-T and thereafter win over the donors again. What he does not know, but which everyone else knows is that he is no longer a useful instrument in the West’s failing regime change schemes in Zimbabwe. Puppets, by their very nature have to be devoted, unquestioning means to a selfish end, and when they fail too many times, as Tsvangirai has done since 2000, they are discarded.
Without donor support, we don’t see a future for MDC-T. Patriots, and there are many in this country, are happy that the scourge of their wellbeing is committing political suicide. The discord is sweet music to them. It hastens a decline that has been going on since July 31.
Even for the avowed optimist, the unfolding events in the MDC-T, foretell another split, further weakening the opposition. Mangoma, through his lawyer, yesterday spoke from an entrenched position, while speaking at another rally in Harare, Tsvangirai is adamant dissenting voices should be weeded out. We foresee another break, Tsvangirai emerging weakened but with more of the party’s dwindling supporters, Biti, Mangoma and treasurer-general, Roy Bennett going with the fewer supporters, but crucially with all the money. An indigent party, already without a message, is material for the political grave.
Online Reporter