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Morgan Tsvangirai

Tafara Shumba Correspondent
Following a plea by MDC-T leader Morgan Tsvangirai for all opposition parties to rally around him in order to dislodge President Mugabe, the small opposition parties’ reaction was scoffing at the plea.

Professor Lovemore Madhuku, leader of the National Constitutional Assembly (NCA), said removing President Mugabe from office could not be an economic policy issue around which opposition political parties could form a coalition.

He further said his party would not be party to that coalition. MDC splinter groups led by Tendai Biti and Welshman Ncube also indicated that they did not intend to be Tsvangirai’s bedfellows. The egos of the opposition leaders will make it impossible for them to find common ground.

The rejection of an MDC-T initiated coalition must have sent a strong message to Tsvangirai who has a penchant for overrating his political worth. Tsvangirai believes, wrongly though, that he is the biggest political player in the opposition politics.

He is under a delusion that he is the face of opposition politics in Zimbabwe; the Alpha and Omega of it. Many thought as much in the early years of MDC-T’s existence.

After a repeated dismal failure to win an election, Tsvangirai’s capacity as leader began to be questioned. His social standing heavily weighed down on the image of the party. Tsvangirai gradually became a liability, which forced his lieutenants to demand a leadership renewal.

As a leader of a movement that professes to champion democracy, he was supposed to be amenable to such democratic demands and allow democratic processes to renew the leadership.

If he commanded internal support that he always brags about, that process should have testified and retained him. The destructive and high-handed behaviour displayed by Tsvangirai in the last 16 years is scaring other political parties from associating with him.

They know that once they hobnob with him, they will be painted with the same brush. Some of the political leaders, who are being courted into a political relationship, have a bright political career that might be soiled by such an association with Tsvangirai. He is a condemned politician.

Tsvangirai approached the coalition issue with a big brother mentality. He believes he is the only person capable of leading that coalition, forgetting that he will be merging with sovereign entities that also have their own leaders.

“Tinozviziva kuti kune vanehumbimbindoga who want to be presidents of small political parties. I will rather be president of the whole movement poised to remove zanu-pf,” said Tsvangirai while addressing his supporters in Binga and Hwange recently.

Tsvangirai must realise that he is not the best opposition leader.

His selection as a leader of the MDC-T was a matter of being first among equals. In the absence of the best, the cast fell on him.

Tsvangirai has been bragging that his party is the biggest political party in Zimbabwe. Bigger than zanu-pf, imagine!

If he indeed believes his MDC-T is the biggest party, why then is he desperate for a coalition?

It defeats logic for the biggest party in the country to seek a coalition with smaller parties in order to remove a smaller party.

“After all, we are the biggest and most popular political party in Zimbabwe and we are, effectively, the government-in-waiting,” said Obert Gutu, the MDC-T spokesperson when commenting on his party’s position to admit Temba Mliswa. The MDC-T labours under this delusion.

The fact that Tsvangirai wants to hire other political parties to enhance his chances of defeating zanu-pf in the 2018 elections, is a testimony that he is clear that alone, he would not prevail over President Mugabe and zanu-pf.

His desperation for a coalition also exposes his duplicity. He has been complaining each time he loses an election that it is rigged. He is even threatening to boycott future elections until electoral reforms are effected. One wonders if uniting with Madhuku, Ncube, Biti, Dabengwa and others could stop the rigging of the elections.

Again, he needs to explain to the people how the coalition will, all of a sudden even out the electoral ground which he has said is tilted against him.

It was not an issue of an uneven ground but uneven numbers. Tsvangirai knows he does not have the numbers to stand the race.

He thinks that by hoodwinking the smaller parties into the coalition, he will amass the numbers that will propel him to State House. Shona elders say “akanyangira yaona.”

Leaders of the smaller opposition parties have managed to see through the selfish agenda behind Tsvangirai’s coalition proposal.

They are cheesed off beyond endurance about making themselves ladders for the ascendancy of selfish politicians. It is a fact that if ever that coalition was going to be beneficial, it is Tsvangirai and him alone who would benefit.