admina few years later — more organised and more structured than the haphazard outlets of MDC-T.
MDC-T secretary-general Tendai Biti and his team which includes discredited former law lecturer Alex Magaisa and a few other non-notables are running a failed campaign against a well-organised Team Zanu-PF Live 2013 and many other well-spoken young people on the net.
The myth that Zanu-PF has no young supporters has been dispelled by social network power.
The MDC-T dominance is now a thing of the past to a point where it has resorted to taking political cues from fictitious characters like Baba Jukwa, who despite having a lot of followers online, is failing to make a mark electorally on the ground.
The quality of debate of Baba Jukwa’s followers cannot match the Zanu-PF ones.
Baba Jukwa’s thunder is waning as the stories become more and more ridiculous and are only about passing officials’ details to people mainly in the Diaspora who have no influence on elections on the ground. They are not based on any solid grassroots work and is mere gossip, which can never translate into electoral victory.
Social networks have also shown how normal people whom the MDC-T used to lie were murderers and thieves are, because they now engage with the people more than ever before.
These include Saviour Kasukuwere, Minister of Youth Development, Empowerment and Employment Creation. Kasukuwere runs a weekly Facebook chat with Zimbabweans. His chat is more structured and more meaningful than say MDC-T’s Obert Gutu or Tendai Biti’s pages which are full of protest statements against Zanu-PF.
Rarely do you find Kasukuwere criticising MDC-T policies. He only articulates Zanu-PF ones, thus separating the wheat from the chaff.
Zanu-PF also leads on the ground by attracting huge numbers even in former urban strongholds of the MDC-T like Chitungwiza and Highfield.
Zanu-PF even recorded larger numbers than MDC-T in these urban areas, including Marondera, and if these numbers are anything to go by, the MDC-T is in for a serious beating at the forthcoming elections.
The pictures, audio files and videos from Zanu-PF star rallies are quickly uploaded onto Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, while the MDC-T is lethargic and resigned to show their star rallies, which have not attracted the scale of success as Zanu-PF’s.
They also have a disorganised way of disseminating their information which is incomparable to that of Team Zanu-PF Live 2013.
This is probably the reason why they are trying as much as possible to discredit the elections.
They are losing the public diplomacy game. Social networks are dominated by Zanu-PF.
Websites like SW Radio Africa and many others are no longer followed by anyone serious as the social networks have become the main source of news.
Thus interviews like the Dali Tambo interview with the Mugabe’s were widely read and discussed, not on websites, but on social networks and posted on YouTube, reaching millions instantly.
The interview showed the Mugabes in a different light from the usual “Mugabe is bad” narrative.
Tsvangirai and his new wife would not have such a rich story to tell as the Mugabe’s given the shoddy circumstances in which their relationship hit the headlines.
Tendai Biti on his “Hon. Tendai Biti” Facebook page continues to attract the same comments propping his discredited ideas, and the MDC-T is not gaining any more ground than it already has, and its internet campaign has been mediocre and ineffective. In fact, it is losing ground to a well-organised Zanu-PF online campaign.
Internet campaigns are useful for the July 31 elections because Biti introduced free importation of gadgets like mobile phones, laptops and other computer equipment thus giving information access to millions of people.
What he did not bargain for was the idea that Zanu-PF could also take advantage of the same platforms to promote its policies.
With the corruption that has characterised MDC-T run councils and sexual escapades of MDC-T leader Morgan Tsvangirai, the party has lost credibility, and that has also been heavily exposed on social networks through a variety of cartoons mocking Tsvangirai.
All this was not there during the 2008 elections.
Thus images of the various women he courted and dumped are shared instantly online, e.g. those of his jilted lover, Locardia Karimatsenga at Rotten Row courts, the video of Loreta Nyathi describing Tsvangirai as behaving like an “immature little boy” and saying the two lovebirds had unprotected sex, and his sham wedding images and videos — a ceremony that had been stopped by the court.
The MDC-T strategy has simply backfired and it was a miscalculation to assume that all the people who will have access to information will be in support of the MDC-T.
Biti’s continued rants on his Facebook profile expose him even more as he fails to maintain a consistent ideological position about the MDC-T strategy.
He has remained in the student politics mode, exposing MDC-T as merely a protest party, that only serves to criticise Zanu-PF policies, but fails to offer a credible alternative. — The Zimbabwe Guardian.
Online Reporter