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George Chisoko Senior Assistant Editor
When the MDC-T which claims to be the biggest opposition party in Zimbabwe, and made its blind followers believe it has the muscle to remove Zanu-PF from power begins to talk of forming a coalition, then you know that the party that touted itself as a political elephant at inception has fast transformed into an ant incapable, on its own, of dislodging the revolutionary party from power.
And that should be disappointing news to those people who have, for years, been made to believe and trust in the MDC-T as a political game changer.
For any party to command the support of multitudes of people, it should have confidence in itself as an oppositional force so as to inspire the same in the supporters, something that Zanu-PF has done with great aplomb since 1980.
By exposing itself to the electorate that it has lost self-belief, that it doubts its capacity to stand toe-to-toe with Zanu- PF and chooses to combine forces with other parties, which themselves have been confined to the cemetery since their formation, the MDC-T has made a huge statement of admission of its overestimated popularity and potence.
It had given itself this false aura of a party that was God’s gift to politics. But, can you be such a party when you cannot stand on your own? That the MDC-T lacks venom is not the creation of this writer but it is something that has been made transparently clear by the coalition route that the party has chosen.
No one really despises the party for electing to form a coalition, it is its choice to do so, for indeed political parties should always adopt strategies that win them elections. But I feel pity for its supporters who are only learning now that the party they supported with a passion since its formation is just a toothless bulldog that poses no threat to anyone and seeks to find strength in a coalition.
There is nothing wrong, however, with forming coalitions since it is an accepted path for political nonetities that are desperate for power following many years in the political wilderness.
It makes sense to form a coalition when you are a party that has failed in numerous attempts to remove Zanu-PF from power. It makes even more sense to form a coalition when your party that claims to be very popular and loved by the people persistently and consistently gets walloped by Zanu-PF in every election it has participated. Indeed, it makes sense!
It fails to make sense when the parties that want to form the coalition are proven failures that have found it hard to make any impact on the political arena. A coalition of failures is without doubt, destined to fail.
It must be noted here that even before the split of the MDC that saw the likes of Welshman Ncube, Job Sikhala, Priscilla Misihairabwi-Mushonga, Tendai Biti and many others leaving to form their own parties, the MDC, in its original purported strong state, still failed in its attempts to send Zanu-PF packing.
The same characters that comprised MDC in its original form, before the several splits, that have not been able to remove Zanu-PF from power, now believe that they can do so by forming a coalition. What a false sense of belief!
The mooted coalition can be likened to same-sex marriage between men, in that no child is ever to be born in that arrangement. There is no one to conceive, to carry the pregnancy and to give birth to a child.
It can also be equated to a lesbian arrangement, where some realising that they still need the opposite sex to conceive are now going for in-vitro fertilisation (IVF) and use a donated stranger’s sperm. That outside interference will not mean the baby is entirely theirs. The sperm donor may one day wake up claiming his baby.
Essentially, I am saying such a coalition is never going to achieve its outcome of wrestling power from Zanu-PF. What it will certainly achieve is to leave those hoping for a change of government, very disappointed.
While the MDC-T spokesman Obert Gutu, unashamedly talks of a value and issue-based coalition, theirs is clearly a coalition of convenience.
We had been used to thinking that marriages of convenience only applied to couples but now I have learnt that even political parties, desperate for power, enter into marriages of convenience as evidenced by the mooted coalition that Gutu talks about.
It is a coalition of convenience because it generally serves the greater interests of the MDC-T to assume the reins of power at all cost, and does not seek to serve the interests of the other parties in the coalition. All the parties forming the coalition do not instill fear in Zanu-PF at all since they are led by proven political failures.
Yes, coalitions have worked in some countries, like Kenya and for anyone to think that whatever worked elsewhere will work in Zimbabwe is daydreaming, not least when the coalition is being formed to fight a party like Zanu-PF that boasts many years’ experience in politics.
Zanu-PF is a party that is glued together by principles and rooted in ideology and has remained unshakable in the midst of unrelenting attacks from the West and its allies.
The message the MDC-T and its allies coming into the marriage of convenience is sending to their supporters is that Zanu-PF’s invincibility, solidity and unshakability is real and that no single political party can stand a chance against it.
Ants always use their combined energy to build anthills because they know that as individuals they cannot achieve anything. How the “mighty” MDC-T has fallen from being an elephant that thought it would easily dismantle Zanu- PF on its own to an ant that now seeks help to achieve the feat!
A party that believes in itself, in its capability, its support, its ability to market itself to the electorate, in its programmes, and its strength such as Zanu-PF would never fathom forming a coalition with anyone because there is clarity in what it stands for and what it seeks to achieve.
Only those parties, like the MDC-T, which suffers from a serious deficiency of ideological grounding, would unsurprisingly, always choose the route of coalition.
However, for me, the biggest threat to the survival of Zanu-PF as a political party is Zanu-PF itself and not any opposition coalition of whatever colour.
The party has very strong roots that it cannot easily be pushed over by the opposition. While the party has managed to take care of the external elements, it needs to now place more emphasis on addressing the internal factors, which have, in recent times, been more problematic than the external.
For now, let the coalition dreamers dream on while Zanu-PF, which is not given to dreaming chart the way, in Victoria Falls, crafting strategies to improve the livelihoods of the people and fulfil the promises made to the electorate during the 2013 harmonised elections that it won emphatically.
Online Reporter