Mwonzora terrified of grand coalition Mr Mwonzora
Mr Mwonzora

Mr Mwonzora

Tafara Shumba
Although many people complain about ZBCTV’s mediocre programming, especially the street theatres, I discovered last Sunday that if you spare some minutes on them, you can learn one or two things.
In one of the episodes, Aphiri, who is under petticoat government, circuitously attacks his domineering wife by artfully directing the diatribe at his innocent friend.
This tactic is also being used in political circles.

It was at play in Douglas Mwonzora’s piece titled “Grand coalition and politics of exclusion”, in which he launched an astonishing tirade on the proposed grand coalition.

He accused the players in the proposed coalition of a myriad democratic deficiencies.
However, Morgan Tsvangirai and the MDC-T in general, are equally at fault on most, if not all, of the accusations levelled by Mwonzora.

Closely scrutinising these accusations, one is left wondering whether the attack was really directed at the coalition players or it was an indirect attack on Mr Tsvangirai, Aphiri-style.

I am also not an advocate of the grand coalition for the sole reason that it is doomed to fail.
I have said many times that a coalition of people with a hotchpotch of ideologies will never stick. That’s as far as I can agree with Mwonzora, the rest of what he said was a cheap attempt to discredit the coalition which he believes would relegate and diminish his party into Tsvangirai’s political fiefdom.

Mwonzora’s article is also motivated by fear of losing donor funding to the coalition.
Mwonzora said Zimbabweans need deliverance from poverty and misery.

What he deliberately omitted to tell readers is that they were plunged into poverty and misery by the sanctions which his party called for.
Usually the best person to exorcise a spell is the sorcerer who cast it in the first place. We all expected the MDC-T to take the country out of the economic quagmire in its four-year stint in government.

The inclusive Government exposed MDC-T’s ineptitude to proffer any meaningful solution to the economic challenges facing our country.
Instead, those who were seconded to Government were preoccupied with amassing illicit wealth for themselves.

It’s too early to forget how Mwonzora’s colleagues in the councils and ministerial positions rose from rags to riches.
In his article, Mwonzora shamelessly goes on to say people of Zimbabwe need change.

Change must begin in the agent of change itself. The political attitude of the opposition parties in this country needs re-orientation and hopefully this is what the MDC-Team is trying to achieve.

The MDC-T misspent the opportunity to showcase the change it has been preaching since 1999.
I vehemently dispute Mwonzora’s erroneous belief that Tsvangirai and his party have the greatest mass appeal among the workers, the unemployed and peasants. This group of people are wallowing in sanction-induced poverty. Their eyes have since been opened.

During the MDC-T’s policy conference last year, ZCTU’s secretary general Japhet Moyo bemoaned the abandonment and betrayal of workers’ aspirations.
He told the MDC-T that it had deviated from its pro-poor foundations.

It was a true observation as these people eventually gave vent to their anger in the July 2013 election.
Which mass appeal is Mwonzora referring to?

The MDC-T has been attacking the indigenisation law that seeks to empower the worker, unemployed and the peasant. The standard of living of workers and their families have been getting worse since the MDC-T came into existence.

Their sanctions have caused the massive folding of companies, resulting in the loss of jobs.
According to the Brenthurst Foundation survey, there were 350 manufacturing enterprises in Bulawayo employing 100 000 workers before the inclusive government and as of 2012, when those who claimed to have the keys to the economy were on board, the companies were reduced to 250 with a workforce of 50 000.

It is on record that Tsvangirai himself scoffed at the civil servants’ demands for a pay rise despite promising them one, a few hours after his inauguration as Prime Minister.

According to Manuel Nyawo as quoted in The Herald of February 15, 2012, Tsvangirai told civil servants in a meeting that he “was not Government that puts food on the table for civil servants.”

He reportedly told them that they were expecting too much and were daydreaming.
It’s strange that Mwonzora believes his boss is a darling of these workers.

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