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Lloyd Gumbo Mr Speaker, Sir
DEBATES in Parliament are often characterised by polarisation and highly charged exchanges between Zanu-PF and MDC-T legislators mostly influenced by political grandstanding than ideological differences.
If you doubt me, attend one parliamentary session where you will be reminded of high school debates fashioned along pro and con groups whose arguments must not converge at all costs, at least during debate.

After all, parliamentary sessions are open to members of the public.
It is a fact that Zanu-PF and MDC-T were founded on divergent ideological philosophies, hence it is normal that they may not always agree on some issues.

But it becomes a problem when their differences go beyond ideological differences to the extent of shooting down everything that comes from the other side.

What legislators across the political divide must understand is that when they walk into Parliament they are there to legislate for the broader Zimbabwe and not their limited party political interests whose relevance to the nation state may not be justifiable.

Because of the overzealousness of some legislators and their appetite for playing to the gallery in opposing what members from the other side say, these legislators believe they will be toeing their party line when, in fact, their party does not subscribe to that.

Will we ever see our legislators debate issues from a national interest perspective rather than their assumed political party interests?
While bickering and squabbling in previous parliaments threatened to derail debate and passage of Bills in the august House, this time around it is going to be different because there is a Zanu-PF two-thirds majority, meaning any party caucus position will always carry the day.

But that is not healthy for democracy and for the ruling party itself because party legislators may not be able to debate issues in terms of what they think but what the party wants.

They may also oppose contributions from MDC-T legislators regardless of how valuable they might be.
Legislators must be able to debate and air their views in the hope that their contributions will influence the executive than just rubber-stamping Bills from the executive without scrutinising them.

No executive can begrudge or whip its legislators for making contributions that are meant to benefit the country.
Parliament has three core functions, that is, law-making, executive oversight and representation.

It is against those functions that legislators must take account of their actions in Parliament to see whether they are fulfilling the mandate from the electorate or pursuing their own interests.

It is important for the MDC-T to accept that Zanu-PF is the ruling party with overwhelming mandate from the electorate and thus must leave the latter to spearhead the legislative agenda.

On the other hand, Zanu-PF must use its majority status in the legislature to make laws with far-reaching benefits to Zimbabweans.
The ruling party must be proactive than reactive especially on legislative issues; in this case re-alignment of existing laws to the new Constitution.

The revolutionary party must know that the opposition will always look for loopholes or its shortcomings to expose it. Being voted into power overwhelmingly comes with vast responsibilities and those have to be fulfilled.
It will not be to the benefit of the revolutionary party to get to 2018 without passing legislation that improves the livelihoods of the electorate who gave it the sole mandate to lead them.

There are issues that have been raised in the House that one would expect both sides to agree on but surprisingly, they have been shot down by either side raising questions of whether parliamentarians were there to pursue national interests or assumed petty party positions.

For instance, one would have expected legislators from across the political divide to support a motion by Mberengwa East MP Makhosini Hlongwane calling on the European Union, Australia, New Zealand and the United States of America to lift all forms of sanctions against Zimbabwe.

Hlongwane proposed that Parliament submit his motion together with a covering letter to the European Parliament, the European External Action Service, the United States Congress, the Australian Parliament, New Zealand Parliament and Britain’s House of Commons urging them to appeal to their governments to lift all forms of sanctions imposed on Zimbabwe.

But, as expected, legislators from the MDC-T did not support the motion despite obviously feeling the pain of the illegal embargoes themselves.

The illegal sanctions imposed on Zimbabwe at the behest of the MDC-T have caused untold suffering on Zimbabweans at large including the party’s supporters who lost jobs when factories closed down because they could not get spare parts from the West.

The same thing happened to a motion by MDC-T’s Mabvuku MP, James Maridadi calling on Parliament to resolve that the portfolio committee on Mines and Energy (composed of members from both Zanu-PF and MDC-T) conducts an inquiry into the power sector in Zimbabwe.

The motion, Maridadi said, was influenced by the intermittent power cuts to both domestic and commercial consumers as a result of load shedding and faults, lack of capacity by ZESA to attend timeously to faults and the ever increasing gap between demand and supply, among others.

It is a fact that the country faces perennial power shortages because of the gap between supply and demand, a development that resulted in industries being affected.

This is a cross-cutting problem that affects both Zanu-PF and MDC-T followers and for that reason one would have expected legislators from the ruling party to support it as well but they shot it down.

It is obvious that these legislators lack foresight and felt that if that committee were to conduct the enquiry and come up with solutions that improve the power situation, credit would go to Maridadi and his party, not the ruling party.

These are two sober motions that one would have expected to be supported by legislators from either side but because of polarisation they could not get the goodwill from both sides which is obviously an unfortunate development.

It is for that reason that people question whether Parliament was a place for contestation of ideas – an ideological battlefield or just a playground.

If legislators are genuine and want a buy-in from both sides, they must avoid provoking the other side as has become the norm by playing to the gallery.

Once that happens, the other side will be left with no choice but to be defensive, in the process frustrating an otherwise good motion.
Polarisation is not good for the country though we are fortunate that we have Zanu-PF that has a two-thirds majority making it impossible for a gridlock on issues brought before the third pillar of the State but that can result in reduction of oversight role. It is also clear that as long as there is polarisation, partisanship will continue to be order of the day in what should be an august House.
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