MDC-T: The case for  a deserved death Elton Mangoma was assaulted by MDC-T youths at Harvest House in February this year, one of many party leaders hounded out by violence
Elton Mangoma was assaulted by MDC-T  youths at Harvest House in February this year, one of many party leaders hounded out by violence

Elton Mangoma was assaulted by MDC-T youths at Harvest House in February this year, one of many party leaders hounded out by violence

Joram Nyathi Group Political Editor
Zanu-PF is the last remaining, solid post-liberation movement which has been able to resist and challenge the hegemonic prescriptions of the west and the IMF. It is the only movement in the region which has dared to postulate a diametrically-different post-colonial economic rubric. THE malady has been given many names: succession battles, factionalism, intra-party violence. This week President Mugabe went as far as calling it a “war going on in my party”. Whatever one calls it, the war in Zanu-PF has gone on for a long time. Except in the past two weeks it assumed the ferocity of a tsunami, creating a great deal of national anxiety about its outcome.

It was a gripping spectacle, in the media as it was among individuals who followed the goings-on, which were impossible to ignore.

It was easier to ignore if not utterly forget that there is, or once was, a political party called MDC-T which, if it were still extant, should start its own congress today.

There was no need for propaganda to demonstrate where lay the centre of power.

That on its own demonstrates the hold Zanu-PF has on our daily lives, why its every activity is closely watched and followed, and why it must always be conscious of these effects and impact on the nation and mind how it conducts its business in public.

That is because that “war” in Zanu-PF is plainly far from over. That is, until the party’s December elective congress. Most Zimbabweans of goodwill would wish that congress came sooner, for, according to insiders, some of the scraps are far from edifying.

The hope about the congress resolving this war is based on the assumption that Zanu-PF members will rise above the fights for positions and personality clashes to focus on the esemplastic values which have shaped the vision of the party and kept it as one despite occasional internal contradictions, which are an inherent risk in any revolutionary movement.

Charges of corruption are not anything new in Zanu-PF. President Mugabe has slammed this scourge, going as far back as the Willowgate scandal in the 1980s to multiple farm ownership by greedy individuals following the land reform programme.

The only difference between then and now is that rarely have people been named and shamed in public. It was the forthrightness by somebody so close to the President.  In the past the nation was accustomed to work by deduction from inference.

Zanu-PF has tended to erect this huge laager where members seem always keen to protect each other.

While that is important to give the appearance of party cohesion, it has tended to undermine the authority of the President and create cynicism about his ability to expose and take action against corrupt members of his party. The First Lady appeared keen to break down this laager.

That is what was riveting, edifying even, about her crusade against corruption. Whether that will lead to more exposures and punishment remains to be seen.

But the point must still be made that Zanu-PF has more enduring values to survive the current “war” without going the way of fly-by-night opposition parties.

Years spent together in the liberation struggle contributed a lot to this spirit of resilience.

The years spent together resisting internal and external white domination in independent Zimbabwe have made unity more than opportunistic, they have made it an existential matter.

Even the nation has come to expect Zanu-PF to unite where matters of the state are concerned, which is why it is inconceivable to contemplate a Zanu-PF split beyond minor internal ideological dissensions.

That is not the same thing as downplaying external machinations and direct efforts to see the death of Zanu-PF, not just a divided one.

Zanu-PF is the last remaining, solid post-liberation movement which has been able to resist and challenge the hegemonic prescriptions of the west and the IMF.

It is the only movement in the region which has dared to postulate a diametrically-different post-colonial economic rubric in which former colonial subjects become masters through an overhaul of property relations, instead of remaining simple providers of a vote that legitimises the status quo ante.

Zanu-PF is able to rise above the conflict of personalities, personal animosity. It has the policies to galvanise people to action.

Unfortunately that is not what it has been doing since its crushing victory over the MDC-T and Morgan Tsvangirai in the July 31 2013 harmonised elections.

The economic turnaround was always going to be difficult for the most loveable political party given the anemic global economy.

The circumstances are doubly onerous for a party such as Zanu-PF which has chosen to challenge the Western ordained world order through the land reform programme at home to a call for a reform of the United Nations.

Such a political party does not deserve help, it needs to be destroyed; it cannot be allowed to execute a successful economic policy, it must be sanctioned and garroted because it is likely to become a pernicious influence on its neighbours.

That is the fate of Zanu-PF. To which the party has itself been complicit by seeming to pay only token attention to Zim-Asset while it is completely engrossed in internal feuding.

A hungry hyena cannot help but laugh when it finds two kudus with horns locked in combat.

That has led to claims that the economy is on autopilot.

That claim is not entirely malicious. It is a bad omen that ordinary people are driven by desperation to even think so.

It means they are not seeing the effort, they see lopsided priorities, they perceive a government and party so complacent after victory they have stopped caring about the man or woman who voted for them; a party consumed by a civil war for positions, according to the President.

The result? The MDC-T and the rest of civic society organisations saw an opportunity to widen and deepen divisions in Zanu-PF.

This culminated in those scenes in Parliament on Tuesday where VP Mujuru was lionised by the opposition in a crude enactment of the colonial divide-and-rule tactics.

Typically, the focus is on individuals rather than issues; it’s victims without causes.

Meanwhile, the MDC-T is proving to be a dead horse for a choice. It has spectacularly failed the test as an alternative, clean government, that is, to the extent that principle remains a factor in our politics.

Here is a political party which for years has tried to project itself as a “party of excellence” out to fight corruption and form a clean government. When it matters most to demonstrate its moral fibre, it turns out to be no more than an opportunistic outfit ready to go with the popular wind.

How do you become a better alternative to Zanu-PF by taking sides with one side of the same corrupt whole?

How do you choose that one side is a mere victim in Zanu-PF’s internal power struggles and therefore less corrupt than the other?

A classic case of a deserved death indeed.

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