admin
Cuthbert Mavheko
MDC-T, still licking its wounds in the aftermath of the heavy thrashing inflicted upon it by Zanu-PF in the 31 July harmonised elections, celebrated its 14th anniversary on 14 September.It staged the anniversary celebration amid reports that some senior party officials are baying for party leader, Mr Morgan Tsvangirai’s blood as they demand leadership renewal before the beleaguered party’s elective congress in 2016.
The devastating impact of the defeat has raised the spectre of Mr Tsvangirai and his party being consigned to the political refuse dump, which is already littered with the decomposing carcasses of a plethora of political parties that, since Independence, tried in vain to dethrone the revolutionary party.
Among them are the late Bishop Abel Muzorewa’s United African National Council, Edgar Tekere’s Zimbabwe Unity Movement, Ndabaningi Sithole’s Zanu Ndonga and former Chief Justice Enock Dumbutsena’s Forum Party of Zimbabwe. Margaret Dongo’s Union of Democrats is also in that category.
It is worth noting that before the 31 July harmonised elections, some soothsayers pontificated that, after skirmishing in Zimbabwe’s political battlefield for 14 years, MDC-T was on the brink of trouncing Cde Mugabe and Zanu-PF and sending them to their final resting place in the graveyard of local politics.
However, this turned out to be mere wishful thinking. Today, Mr Tsvangirai and his lieutenants in MDC-T find themselves on the horns of a dilemma as they contemplate what to do to stop their party from tumbling into the bottomless pit of political oblivion in the wake of their crushing electoral defeat.
It should be noted that the MDC-T lost overwhelmingly to Zanu-PF, even in areas that it had previously regarded as its strongholds. Such areas as Matabeleland region, Manicaland and Masvingo, among others voted against Mr Tsvangirai and his western-backed party, leaving Cde Mugabe and Zanu-PF to have the last laugh.
The humiliating electoral defeat that the MDC-T suffered at the hands of Zanu-PF has drawn the ire of some factional leaders within the beleaguered party who subscribe unequivocally to the view that the defeat must be placed squarely on Mr Tsvangirai’s shoulders. The factional leaders cogently argue that Mr Tsvangirai should not only bear the bitter burden of the electoral defeat, but should also stop singing vote-rigging songs and tell the nation the truth – that he and his party lost in a free, fair and peaceful election.
Over and above that, there is a consensus of opinion within the leadership of MDC-T that the time has now come for Mr Tsvangirai, who appears to be suffering from post election stress disorder, to pass the baton to someone else as he has failed ignominiously to steer the party to victory in 14 years that he has been at the helm of the party.
Let it be said quite frankly that Mr Tsvangirai and his colleagues in MDC-T forfeited their chances of winning the harmonised elections while they were still in the inclusive Government. I have said this in one of my previous articles – I guess no harm will be done in repeating it.
Mr Tsvangirai and his subordinates in the now defunct coalition Government used their positions to buy luxurious cars and flamboyant mansions in leafy suburbs for themselves and did virtually nothing to uplift the lives of the very people who gave them the mandate to be in that Government.
Mr Tsvangirai himself was under the illusion that he already had the presidency in the bag and he regarded his participation in the harmonised election as a mere formality.
Be that as it may, some of his friends in the US and Britain saw the writing on the wall and predicted his political downfall before Cde Mugabe announced the date of the elections. It is clear that Mr Tsvangirai was aware of the western opinion polls which predicted his impending electoral defeat and Zanu-PF’s victory.
Ironically, Mr Tsvangirai poured cold water on these predictions as he was, at the time, basking in the glory of an electoral victory that, as far as he was concerned then, was inevitable.
Strangely, Mr Tsvangirai is now telling the whole world that the elections were manipulated. Clearly, no rational person would subscribe to this. In any case, no shred of evidence has been proffered by Mr Tsvangirai and his party to substantiate their claims that the elections were rigged.
This has proved beyond doubt that the claims are malicious, unfounded and should therefore be treated with dismissive scorn.
If Mr Tsvangirai has the interests of the nation at heart, he should concede defeat with grace and dignity and act with maturity by acknowledging that any contest, electoral or otherwise, produces only two results – a victory or a loss.
He should disabuse himself of the misconception that accepting defeat is a sign of failure of weakness. Far from it. Accepting defeat is a mark of sincerity, humility, maturity and ethical integrity. These values are priceless and are ingrained only in the hearts of people with a strong mental disposition.
The harmonised elections have come and gone as everyone is aware. Cde Mugabe and Zanu-PF have been given the mandate to preside over Zimbabwe’s governance for the next five years. As for Mr Tsvangirai and his MDC-T, they have no other option but to go back to the drawing board to restrategise in order to rejuvenate their waning political fortunes.
There is nothing to be gained by continuing to cast aspersions on a plebiscite that was certified as free, fair and credible by Sadc and the African Union, among many other progressive institutions.
There can be no doubt in anyone’s mind that Mr Tsvangirai and his party voluntarily participated in the 31 July elections. To that extent, if the outcome of the elections was influenced by “massive rigging and intimidation” as they now claim, then how do they explain the fact of their voluntary participation in the elections?
As I personally see it, it is tantamount to madness for Mr Tsvangirai and his party to vilify an election which they consciously and willingly participated in just because they lost the election. What if they had won? Would they be singing the song of despondency that they are singing?
He had predicted a “resounding victory” for his party when he cast his vote in Mount Pleasant in Harare. Alas, the defeat has left him with egg on the face and reduced his prediction to mere theatrics of a man who appears to suffer from delusions of grandeur.
For many years, he has hoodwinked his sponsors abroad into believing that he is the embodiment of the will of the majority of Zimbabwean people — that he had their mandate to occupy the highest office in the land. This falsehood was exposed by the just-ended elections, which placed the two main political parties in the battle — Cde Mugabe and Mr Tsvangirai — into their rightful positions in the local political arena.
What has compounded Mr Tsvangirai’s predicament is that he suffered this humiliating electoral defeat when his coterie of backers in the west had high expectations that he would win. He had promised them that his “in-coming government” was going to scrap indigenisation and economic empowerment initiatives and reverse the land reform programme.
The simple truth is that Zanu-PF won the harmonised elections because it did its homework. Claims that it rigged the elections are nothing but a face-saving gimmick by the losers.
The revolutionary party’s dismal performance in 2008 awakened it to the realisation that it had, at that time, lost the support of the masses. And so, during the constitutional outreach programme, the party began to lure voters in both rural and urban areas by coming up with programmes and initiatives that prioritised their needs.
Cde Mugabe and Team Zanu-PF interacted with the electorate at grassroots level and intensified the gospel of indigenisation, explaining that the goal of indigenisation was to have them (the masses) take total control of their natural resources.
Land reform and the policy of indigenisation coincided with the people’s needs and the revolutionary party impressed upon them that their emancipation from the shackles of colonially-imposed economic enslavement was guaranteed if they gave Zanu-PF the mandate to form the next government.
The so-called labour-backed MDC-T lost the harmonised elections simply because of complacency, failure to organise its structures, imposition of candidates in many constituencies, and perhaps, most importantly, lack of strategy to woo voters.
Instead of selling his party’s policies to the electorate during his campaign rallies, Mr Tsvangirai spent most of his time lambasting Zanu-PF and dismissing its leadership as a “clueless bunch of old politicians, who had ruined the economy.”
However, what he neglected to tell his followers is that the illegal economic sanctions, imposed against the country by the US and European Union at the instigation of his own party had driven the country into an economic cul-de-sac.
Online Reporter