EDOTORIAL COMMENT: Grand coalition pie in the sky

REPORTS that a grand coalition of opposition political parties is in limbo are not surprising given the incompetence in the opposition ranks and greed for power by some of the characters touted as leaders of the proposed outfit. As we report elsewhere on these pages, coalition talks are on the verge of collapse because the MDC-T and Zimbabwe People First parties are non-committal towards the collective effort. Following Zanu-PF’s crushing victory in the 2013 general elections, the main opposition party — MDC-T —imploded due to the sheer magnitude of their defeat and its backers in the West abandoned it.

The emergence of People First fronted by former Vice President Joice Mujuru gave the West a new Trojan horse to champion their interests hence the push to have the fragmented opposition parties coalescing in a so-called grand coalition to unseat Zanu-PF in the 2018 elections.

MDC-T leader Morgan Tsvangirai appears to be scuttling the planned coalition with hawks in his party reportedly not keen to go to bed with the likes of Mujuru and fancying their chances of going it alone in the forthcoming polls. The MDC-T recently held a march in Harare where it mobilised thousands of people and this show of force seems to have galvanised Tsvangirai into naively thinking that he still has the muscle to outwit Zanu-PF.

Just like he did in 2013 when he held a so-called cross over rally in Harare, Tsvangirai is deluded into imagining that putting together rented crowds of rowdy youths and other malcontents can translate into votes at the ballot box. His party is working on another march in Bulawayo and this time we are told, the MDC-T plans to mobilise a bigger crowd in a bid to arm twist its coalition partners and dominate the proposed new grouping.

Sources close to the coalition negotiations have revealed that about nine smaller parties including the Professor Welshman Ncube-led MDC and the Tendai Biti-led People’s Democratic Party (PDP) are in possession of the coalition proposal document waiting for a signing ceremony.

The document, according to sources, should be signed before the end of this month but the MDC-T and Zim-PF are reportedly not in possession of the document as they were not part of the coalition negotiations amid frantic efforts by the smaller parties to get them on board.

With the resistance to the coalition from Tsvangirai’s party and Mujuru’s fence sitting tactics, the coalition, according to sources, is likely to suffer a stillbirth.

This is hardly surprising given Tsvangirai’s big brother mentality and mistaken belief that he is the face of the opposition in Zimbabwe. The MDC-T leader has single-handedly engineered the downfall of his party because of his dictatorial tendencies and propensity for violence when his position is threatened. From the first MDC split by Prof Ncube and his group to the breakaway by Biti and Mangoma, Tsvangirai has shown a ruthless streak to purge opponents he deems to be a threat to his throne.

Reports that his party has chosen to concentrate on planned demonstrations around the country whose numbers they want to use to bargain in the coalition expose Tsvangirai as a power hungry leader who is not prepared to compromise.

As for Mujuru’s PF, the party simply does not have the numbers to bargain for a bigger stake in the planned coalition. The folly of Mujuru’s grouping is that they staked their future on the expectation that some Zanu-PF bigwigs would jump ship and join them but contrary to expectation, they have remained in the revolutionary party with some censured ones actually appealing against their suspensions.

The idea of a grand coalition therefore appears to be a pie in the sky because of the ideological differences inherent in the parties expected to form it. Some of the smaller parties simply do not have the numbers required to add value to the proposed outfit while the egos of the leaders of the bigger parties will put paid to any plans to forge an alliance.

As long as the MDC-T and its leader Tsvangirai continue to bury their heads in the sand, Zanu-PF has an easier task ahead of the 2018 polls and if it puts its house in order and displays the unity of purpose which delivered the 2013 landslide, then the opposition has little chance of upstaging it.