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Tendai Biti

Benny Tsododo
The boycotting of by-elections by the MDC formations, accompanied by their tacit support of other non-electoral interventions to create transitional governments, is enough proof that those in the opposition, having suffered consecutive electoral defeats at the hands of Zanu-PF, are now electoral cowards ready to undermine the will of voters.

Having been insatiable beneficiaries of a four-year Inclusive Government and after being reluctantly forced to forfeit their Government positions in that transient political outfit, opposition politicians still nostalgically regard similar non-electoral bodies as an opportunity to smuggle themselves back into power.

It is not surprising therefore that we hear opposition functionaries noisily touting non-electoral projects such as the so-called National Convergence Platform (NCP) as the answer to the country’s economic and supposed political woes.

Prior to the formulation of the NCP, opposition functionaries had proposed the creation of other all-inclusive and non-electoral bodies that would guarantee them an uncontested place in the resultant default government.

Tendai Biti of the MDC Renewal Team once passionately suggested the formation a shadowy National Technical Transitional Council (NTTC) as an urgent solution to the supposed challenges facing the country.

With flowery language, Biti vainly tried to justify the imposition of his NTTC upon the will of voters who had elected Zanu-PF into power.

Not to be outdone and yet glaringly lacking in innovation, Morgan Tsvangirai of the MDC-T is once again vociferously clamouring for a Sadc midwifed inclusive Government, which in his mind would hand him back the country’s premiership and concomitantly safeguard his unjustified stay at a Government mansion.

In this vein, the MDC-T leader, who is perennially rejected by voters, continues to inexplicably appeal to South African President Jacob Zuma and other regional leaders to intervene in Zimbabwe’s domestic matters ostensibly to resolve an imagined crisis.

It is not a coincidence therefore that despite all manner of power-driven animosity, Biti and Tsvangirai find common ground in their spirited support for the National Convergence Platform, for they think it might give them a non-electoral opportunity to sneak back into power through the transitional body.

Other than Biti and Tsvangirai, we hear that other rabid critics of Government such as Ibbo Mandaza, Sebastian Bakare,  Charles Mangongera and others are the behind the NCP project.

The NCP provides all electoral cowards with an opportunity to ambush Government and create a parallel structure that may usurp power from the constitutional authorities.

As with other opposition formations, the NCP had no problems in getting donor funding. Last week, it announced that it had already secured massive funding for its programmes.

Since conveners of the NCP say they want to bring together representatives of all sectors of the nation, it is clear that this platform is doomed to be a non-constitutional replica of Parliament, a non-elected body feigning to represent the will of the people.

As to why a non-constitutional and parallel structure to both Parliament and Government would be a panacea to the country’s challenges remains a mystery.

Conveners and supporters of the NCP concept pretend that there are no established constitutional platforms to represent the people, which is a blatant lie.

Parliament invariably provides a constitutional platform for all that the NCP is pretending to avail.

All elected representatives of the people find convergence in Parliament. Through its portfolio committees and other outreach programmes, Parliament also provides other sectors such as business and the religious community with an opportunity to register their concerns.

With this in mind, it is clear that the NCP is trying to undermine the functions of Parliament by masquerading as the alternative platform where the people’s concerns are addressed.

By claiming to have the answers to the economic challenges facing the country, the NCP is also taking a subtle dig at Government for allegedly failing to resolve the challenges facing the people.

However, what is surprising is that the likes of Biti and Tsvangirai, who now want to present themselves as transitional authorities with all the answers to the country’s challenges, have previously failed to demonstrate their administrative aptitude during their tenure in the inclusive government.

With Biti holding the reins at the finance ministry, the country never registered any economic benefits during the inclusive Government. Instead, people started to experience the pangs of his stringent anti-empowerment policies aimed at reversing Zanu-PF’s indigenisation drive. As for Tsvangirai, the only footprints he left during the inclusive government are his hotly reported sexual escapades and expensive exploits in the high seas, nothing else.

Instead of trying to bulldoze their way into Government under the charade of a transitional unit, we challenge the opposition functionaries to package the suggested political and economic solutions of their ancillary technocrats in civil society, academia and other sectors into a manifesto they will present to the people for possible election into power in 2018.