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Martin Stobart Opinion
It is common cause that the more there is procrastination by MDC-T and its “partners” as a machination to delay the holding of harmonised elections, the more the national economy deteriorates. The Constitutional Court recently ordered President Mugabe to proclaim election dates and ensure that they are held by 31 July. On Thursday, he complied with the court order and proclaimed 31 July as the date for the much-awaited harmonised elections. MDC-T opposes elections in July, but wants them in August, a position it shares with other parties — MDC, Zapu, Mavambo and Zanu Ndonga.
A dysfunctional economy is what the MDC-T believes is its trump card for the elections since its formation in 1999. The party believes in the politics of the stomach: a hungry man is an angry man: has been its other rallying call.
This comes into sharp focus when one considers how the economic sanctions imposed on Zimbabwe came into being. Of course, we all know that the sanctions are illegal and that they irreparably hurt the economy in spite of the MDC-T and its allies’ claims that they are targeted at individuals.
MDC-T secretary general, Mr Tendai Biti, although not an articulate speaker of the Queen’s language, managed to tell the world the truth about the West’s illegal sanctions, saying that they are discouraging investment as investors adopted a wait and see approach. Some newspapers interpreted Mr Biti’s statement as breaking ranks with his party. The interpretation is spot-on.
Although he didn’t quite let the whole cat out of the bag, one can always tell a cat when you see his head and fore claws. One can conclude that Mr Biti’s admission that the illegal sanctions were an obstacle to development and investment represents the views of many in the inner circle of the MDC-T.
I would not believe it if someone told me that Mr Biti’s statement was a gaffe. Mr Biti, I notice, is never consistent at best; at worst he is notoriously prevaricative. His penchant for double-speak knows no bounds.
Soon after he made the above statement, the Constitutional Court ruled that elections be held on or before 31 July 2013. No sooner was this ruling made than Mr Biti made a somersault; the country has no money to hold the harmonised elections. But haven’t we heard it all before, ad infinitum, ad nauseum?
As if Mr Biti’s antics are not enough, MDC spokesman, Mr Douglas Mwonzora, whom I now call Mr Chekutanga Ndechekuti, comes on to the stage and announces that MDC-T will not enter (please read enter) into an election unless….. he rattles out his usual demands including the cessation of “all” violence. Yet again, who doesn’t know the truth that most of the violence in the country is either directly perpetrated or provoked by MDC-T?
Otherwise it is an open secret that the rest is phantom violence contrived by that party and then dramatised for the attention of the “indernational” (a favourite pronunciation by Biti, Mwonzora and Morgan Tsvangirai) community. MDC-T is blackmailing the people of Zimbabwe. National elections are not handed on a platter.
MDC-T are cry babies at best, and at worst they are spoiled brats. Some of us have been around long enough to observe how military reform is done. The military, no matter where in the world it might be, does its own reforms internally, and this without any let or hindrance by, or from, any source whatsoever. The military is a permanent national institution unlike politicians and their organisations who come and go. The military defends and upholds the nationhood, sovereignty and independence of a country.
The MDC-T as a political organisation is a misnomer. Since its formation the party has striven to reduce Zimbabwe to the level of a banana republic. Only those who refuse to see can argue to the contrary. (Also, the inclusion of army reforms in the GPA was not a good thing at all). The military’s existence in a country is cast in stone; it is written in edible ink, if this phrase is strong enough.
Indeed multi-partyism is a noble political principle, yet it does not follow that in practice multi-partyism provides us with quality politics nor quality political practitioners; neither does it provide us with good, credible political organisations. All too often if not invariably, in countries that waged liberation wars to dislodge settler regimes or racist minorities from power (eg in Zimbabwe and South Africa), the new indigenous political players such as the MDC-T have been a reincarnation of Africans who were used by the settlers, surreptitiously and ostensibly, as “representatives” of the black people. Some of us know these black leaders. They have departed from this material world. This writer is not a coward who clobbers dead people, regardless of their egregious sins.
However, it is patently clear that in Zimbabwe we have a new group of black neo-colonialists who purvey neo-colonialist politics. They talk of liberating, of freeing, of democratising Zimbabwe.
Some of them have been heard to eulogise Ian Smith, elevating him in status above President Mugabe in the leadership of this country. I believe, strongly, that this behaviour by black Zimbabweans is grossly perfidious.
MDC-T in particular, has introduced into the Zimbabwean arena an unprecedented culture of retrogressive and degenerative politics. Zimbabweans are having to contend with cheap politics. I have never heard the likes of Mr Chekutanga Ndechekuti (Douglas Muronzora, remember?) and Mr Biti speak well or respectfully of President Mugabe, electing to deliberately malign and portray him in bad light.
Their politics is devoid of value addition which is a huge pity when you consider that some of them received free education up to secondary school level and State grants at tertiary level. Upon reflection, one is not wrong to say that the post independence government’s policy of free education was not the sort of wise human resource investment it was designed to be.
The education which these malcontents received, gratis, in financial terms, was paid for through the many sacrifices made by many Zimbabweans including the loss of lives. And not least of these scarifies was that Zimbabweans as young as 12 years-old abandoned learning to join the liberation war.
Now, MDC-T, a Johnny-come-lately in local politics comes around, sits on a pedestal and starts preening itself and pontificating as the quintessence, the fifth virtue of Zimbabwean politics, all this thanks to foreign funding. I feel, at this juncture, it’s useful for us to delve into the broader picture of how and why, not only in the case of Zimbabwe but elsewhere in the former colonies of Europe especially, parties such as the MDC-T, sprout up and not only to pollute the political environment but actually steal the show from the liberation movements. I wish to confine my sentiments here within my beloved country.
While it is our right as Zimbabweans to savour our defeat of racists and usurpers of basic human rights, we shall not be oblivious of the fact that the victory has to be guarded jealously and diligently.
How do we do this? The leaders should not forget another key “squadron” of the military. This is the povo, without being pejorative. Within this majority segment of the society there is inherently found what is referred to as the organic intellectuals. You build that core by education not only academic or technical education, but that side of it which deals with the simplest forms of patriotism. The defence of a country is vested in the military, but this counts for little if not for naught when you have neo-colonialist organisations such as the MDC-T to contend with. These organisations are very “powerful” monetarily (since they are foreign-funded) but hollow politically. If you listen to the likes of Mwonzora, Biti and Tsvangirai then one is left in no doubt that these are politically hollow and directionless. Their theme, if we notice (and I do) is about the politics of the stomach: the poor state of the economy. The party has been carping about the economy as a political tramp card. Didn’t they call for sanctions in the first place? MDC-T is pandering to the designs and machinations of the Europeans and the Americans.
The party is being used to isolate President Mugabe and weaken him as leader of his country. This stratagem would have been nigh impossible to effect if Zimbabwe had had an educated and liberated subaltern society and an organic intelligentsia to operate complementarily with all the national service institutions. Cuba has withstood the combined onslaught of the US’s psychological and economic warfare thanks to the patriotism of the people of that island. Now we hear that the EU and the US (and others) are “re-engaging with Zimbabwe”. Oh yea, these are overtures. We should understand that a poacher cannot be trusted as a gamekeeper.
As a founding member of Zanu-PF I would observe and even advise that the party needs to engage with the subaltern and the organic intellectuals in order not to render our posterity vulnerable to neo-colonialist influences, external or internal. Let us understand the fact that President Mugabe is not what he is by politics or by the presidency but rather that he has made what global politics what it is. In that vein and in the same spirit, I would share the sentiment of Major-General Douglas Nyikayaramba who expressed the view that he would die to keep President Mugabe in power. Most nations if not all, have “died” for a particular leader.
There is nothing about that statement. As for Zanu-PF, the party has had its base support from the “masses” since the liberation war and it will be utter betrayal of that support if it lost or surrendered it to the MDC-T through the auspices of Sadc and others. This is tantamount to surrendering the sovereignty of the nation to Western-sponsored pseudo-political parties.
Zanu-PF has to be big in stature and not in rhetoric only. The EU and the US have no choice but to re-engage with Zimbabwe through its Head of State and Government, President Mugabe. He is the cedar tree of global politics and evergreen. He has defied the odds. He does not lash out at his detractors, more so if they are Africans. He is a very calculating man.
Online Reporter