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Deserted, MDC-T president Morgan Tsvangirai flanked by his deputy Thokozani Khupe, deputy secretary-general Tapiwa Mashakada,e and deputy national chairman Morgan Komichi at a rally in Mabvuku yesterday. — Picture by Munyaradzi Chamalimba

Reason Wafawarova  on Thursday
MDC-T and its leader Morgan Tsvangirai became widely-known and somewhat relevant on the international scene since the party’s formation in 1999, not exactly because of any specific achievement or success on the part of the Western-sponsored political outfit, but purely on the basis of the treacherous willingness of Zimbabweans making up the party to front the anger of the dispossessed white land owners and their allies in the imperial West.

The party started as a coalition of students, unionists, intellectuals, Rhodesians, leftists, and civic activists — all confederated by the bond of Western moneybags, indisputably pre-eminent to any of the conflicting values that existed between the groups.

The West overreacted to Zimbabwe’s land reform programme, in the process disastrously underestimating the strength of Zanu-PF and its leader Robert Mugabe.

British and American intelligence overrated the influence of Morgan Tsvangirai, and they disesteemed Robert Mugabe to their own peril, as events clearly show 15 years after the MDC project was launched.

It does not matter what one’s political opinion or inclination is, the indisputable reality as things stand in Zimbabwe today is that Zanu-PF has succeeded in thwarting the MDC in all its fractious formations, and the MDC in all its forms and shapes has dismally failed to dislodge Zanu-PF from power.

Everything else that can be suggested is only a matter of post-mortem analysis.
One clear distinction between Zanu-PF and the MDC in the last 15 years is the difference in unity of purpose between the two parties.

Zanu-PF has managed to keep its warring factions within the confines of its revolutionary brand in such an efficacious manner that when Simba Makoni broke away from the party, he literally had no single follower in tow, not even one person from Zanu-PF’s leadership even pretended to be interested.

Even Makoni’s wife has not once stood by him in public.
The MDC started purging and eliminating dissident members as early as 2002 when Munyaradzi Gwisayi was expelled for publicly supporting the land reform policy.

By 2005, the centre could no longer hold the warring factions within the party, and a fustian motion by leader Morgan Tsvangirai to boycott a senate election degenerated into a vicious feud that split the party into two irreconcilable outfits, one led by the egotistic Tsvangirai, and the other led by the sapient Welshman Ncube, who later handed over the leadership to the then mythically strong Arthur Mutambara.

This breakaway faction of the MDC splintered further when Job Sikhala mutinied to form what he called MDC 99, a pseudo-political event comprising political nobodies well exemplified by Sikhala himself — a not so impressive clown masquerading as a big time politician.

Later, Ncube reclaimed his political outfit from Mutambara, ostensibly succumbing to the glaring temptation to sit in the latter’s deputy prime minister chair — all secured because Zanu-PF had donated partial victory to the MDC formations in the 2008 harmonised election; thanks to a faction that spitefully gave the game away through a self-destructing operation named “Bhora Musango.”
The Psycho-motor Minister can explain best what this means.
It is believed he coined the phrase.

Like Job Sikhala, Arthur Mutambara pretended to have formed his own MDC formation, if only to create around himself an aura of legitimacy as he perilously clung on to his deputy premier portfolio, with much needed support from President Mugabe — most likely motivated by the need to keep the confused Tsvangirai in check more than anything else.

After the Welshman Ncube-led MDC literally came out of election 2013 empty handed, the demon of splitting relocated to Tsvangirai’s MDC — itself reduced from a 100 seat party of 2008 to a 49 seat party after the 2013 election.

We now hear of two parallel national councils, two MDC-Ts, counter suspensions and counter expulsions from the warring factions, we hear of rallies and counter rallies, and one has to ask so many questions on the goings on in Zimbabwe’s opposition circles.

The MDC has been entangling itself in the failure cycle from its inception, and precisely this has been because the party has existed solely on the weaknesses of Zanu-PF, never for once on any merit of its own, even an imagined one.
In life one has to govern failure, otherwise failure governs those that fail to govern it.

Firstly, the MDC has suffered immensely from the danger of paralysis.
The party has thrived as a sloganeering and protesting movement, but it has been detrimentally paralysed by its lack of ideology and policy.
Those who conveniently abandon faith in patriotism and hope in sovereignty have brought about this danger to the MDC.

The MDC has been paralysed by those who spread cynicism and distrust on matters related to our independent nationalism; those who have tried to blind us to the great chance to do good for our long-suffering masses.

The MDC has been a party led by people whose fear of an unknown future without the investment powers of the white man paralyses their own initiative, and this is the main explanation behind the party’s lack of ideology, apart from glaring incompetence on the part of Morgan Tsvangirai and a few others in the outfit’s top echelons.

In addition to the paralysis of policy and ideology the MDC has been a victim of endless procrastination. Those that have tried to introduce meaningful policy to the party have been summarily dismissed as hopeless intellectuals jumping the gun by talking about things that could wait until “we are in the new Zimbabwe,” and this unhelpful attitude even manifested itself during the era of the inclusive government. Not even poll forecasters could attract the attention of the delusional MDC-T leadership.

Nelson Chamisa explained that his party’s dismal failure to assert its influence over the constitution making process was justified on the flimsy pretext that the party was going to “come up with a proper constitution” after the “demise of the sunset party,” in reference to Zanu-PF — the party that went on to larrup the MDC formations convincingly in the 2013 elections.

Procrastination is the fertiliser that makes difficulties grow, and today it is hard for Tsvangirai and his colleagues to convince anyone that they can do any better than the inglorious show they gave to Zimbabweans during the inclusive government era. Procrastination, as one Victor Kiam states, is “opportunity’s natural assassin.”

In politics there are risks and costs to any program of action, but such risks are far less than the long-range risks and costs of comfortable inaction.
Morgan Tsvangirai might have been sexually very active in the public eye during the inclusive Government era, but politically the man drowned in the deep end of comfortable inaction.

The third aspect depicting failure on the part of the MDC-T is sheer purposelessness. There is nothing more useless than a character who comes to the end of the day congratulating himself saying, “Well, at least I did not mess up anything.” Such sentiments define very well the behaviour of people that fear failure. Rather than pursuing worthy objectives most MDC-T officials spent their five years in government avoiding the pain of making mistakes, and that way they lost sense of whatever little purpose they might have had before joining government.

Zanu-PF realised this weakness in MDC-T politicians and capitalised on it. That is precisely how the party managed to hijack the constitution-making process Outreach Program, turning it into a voter education campaign, and even coaching its activists to push forward the party’s interests — all in the impotent presence of MDC-T officials, who were clearly oblivious to the political dangers inherent in the Zanu-PF games.

This fear of failure by MDC-T political debutants resulted in harmful inactivity, and there were unavoidable negative side effects of this trend.
Firstly there was this unhelpful self-pity mainly played to the Sadc and South Africa gallery. MDC-T leaders somehow trained themselves so well in feeling sorry for themselves, and as time progressed the leadership took less and less responsibility for its own inactivity, and started thinking of themselves as victims. That is what happens when one is being governed by failure.

The MDC-T leadership has for long behaved like Cristiano Ronaldo taking those spectacular dives in the penalty area, all in a bid to secure undeserved sympathy from match officials. They loved it when South Africa’s Lindiwe Zulu seemed to be obliging to this misguided machination.
The second side effect of comfortable inactivity is excuses. Falling down in politics is not exactly the major problem. A person can fall down many times, but he will not necessarily be a political failure until he starts saying somebody pushed him.

A person who makes a mistake and offers an excuse for it is only adding a second mistake to his misfortunes.
This is why this blame game where every mistake of Tsvangirai is blamed on Zanu-PF and the CIO is actually good for President Mugabe and his party.

It is one more costly mistake on the party of the opposition.
We now hear it is now an officially dismissable offence for any MDC-T member to suggest that the July 31 2013 election might not have been rigged.

Tsvangirai calls it “going against party policy.” Excuses can become policy when pursued excessively.
There is no chance in a million years that Tsvangirai will overcome his failure without taking personal responsibility for his shortcomings, and that goes for anyone smitten by the scourge of failure.

The third side effect of comfortable inactivity is misused energy. MDC-T has a leadership without focus, and no doubt many in this leadership are people whose mind and cause are not married. The party seems to be capable of going in too many directions at once, and it is hard to believe it is going anywhere politically. Morgan Tsvangirai has become a legendary flip-flopper; capable of denouncing a government he is begging to join.

The mighty noise made by MDC-T leaders is comparable to stomping the accelerator of a car that is in neutral. If you listen to Chamisa or Sikhala clowning at Tsvangirai’s rallies you could leave thinking Zanu-PF would be history before sunset. The energy in the young personal manning MDC-T affairs is immensely misused, and this is precisely because there is no ideological path in the party.

The fourth side effect of comfortable inactivity is hopelessness. Nothing explains this better than the actions of Roy Bennet, Tendai Biti, Elton Mangoma and their colleagues in the renewal team. July 31 2013 was a master-stroke for MDC-T.

The Western-sponsored hope vanished into thin air, and for once the reality of the true Morgan Tsvangirai started to haunt these ambitious political upstarts.

The setting of a great hope is like the setting of the sun. It takes away the brightness of life, and this is exactly what has happened to MDC-T.
A great borrowed life has come to an abrupt end, and the West are better off channelling their puppet funds the direction of Venezuela, Afghanistan, Egypt, Ukraine and Syria, places where puppets with better spine and vision seem to be doing a better job for the master at the moment.

Zimbabwe we are one and together we will overcome. It is homeland or death!

Reason Wafawarova is a political writer based in SYDNEY, Australia.