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Charles Dube : Correspondent

We have tended to reduce our politics to a zero-sum game and this has been a great impediment to development. This is the cancer which continues to be an albatross around the neck of all political discourse in most of Africa and the “Third World”. As the hypothesis goes, you are either with me or you are not. There is no room for common interests and a common agenda, even if the challenges and opportunities for us as nationals remain the same. If I disagree with you over where a proposed dam should be located, then even if I have no qualms over where you say the next dip tank should be located, I will choose to go for a different location and argue my throat out to ensure your good idea does not hold.

If you beat me in primaries, then I will hold it against you and would rather a member of the opposing party wins than you. If you beat my party at an election, then I will oppose you even in international forums where our common interests are debated, even if it is at cost to my country. I will make it my responsibility to ensure that you cannot govern and deliver on your promises to the electorate and or even adopt the posture “Tongai tione”, let’s see how far you will go in governing the land.

Even where a ruling party hears a good proposal coming from the opposition, they would rather let it go than adopt an idea which would give mileage to their nemesis. We see enemies instead of fellow citizens with a common future. We see controlling the state as an opportunity to milk the cow and hence our political fights get reduced to fighting over opportunities to milk the cow; democracy is reduced to how feasible a game of musical chairs is in running issues of state. If only we stood a little while to ponder over why we get into politics, then maybe our approach to these things would be slightly different.

We are a young nation and our common objectives are clear, and I here underline common as these objectives can never be partisan. We all want good living standards for ourselves and our children and all future generations. We want to leave a legacy for future generations.

The biggest single force to achieve all this is by attaining the instruments of running and controlling state power. That is where there is the most concentrated power over the management and manipulation of our human and national resources.

A lot of things we accept as fait accompli are not normal and we should all aim to see them off the face of our nation. That there are still people without running water in the 21st century nor electricity or tarred roads should not be accepted as normal, rural life as we might call it. People have no access to adequate medical care and live on $1 a day. It should not be like that.

It is most unfortunate that in the background of all this underdevelopment, we find ourselves making the attainment or retention of political power an end in itself instead of focusing on the abhorrent and abominable misnomer of underdevelopment we face as a nation.

Winning an election should be one big opportunity to get on to the reins and drive the nation forward to the next level. The nation is not about party, but includes ruling and opposition alike and these should all be mobilised for national development and not be compartmentalised as part of a long-term agenda to win or retain power.

The government has an obligation to mobilise all nationals independent of party for national development. Likewise, losing an election should be an opportunity to go back to the drawing board and re-evaluate ourselves in relation to the common national agenda with a view to bringing into the next election a more competitive package to get into power. In all this, the people and how best to serve them should be at the centre.

The problem with our politics is that winning an election and not delivering to the people has become the end. Consequently we remain in an election mode 24/7x365x5 years to the next election. At undergraduate, my political science professor, one David Kimble, used to say that for Africa to develop, the people needed to be depoliticised.

We used to hate him for that because we were highly politicised ourselves. It was in the 70s. Now I see a lot of merit in all that. Even the idea of a one-party state was not that much of a bad idea after all. Only that it tended to be used to entrench greedy, patronage and corruption like all the good ideas, including communism before it, which have met the same fate.

Even religion has not been spared from this human folly as it too has been subjected to re-engineering and rebranding to meet personal agendas. Likewise, we rebranded our politics – opposition and ruling parties alike.

It is not a sign of weakness when a winning candidate in a primary election arranges a meeting with those he has just vanquished to chart a common agenda and interests. Likewise, it is not a sign of weakness when after winning an election a winning party sits down with those it has beaten to discuss common interests and common agendas and frequently hold debriefing sessions with them on how they are governing.

When you win an election and get the reins of power, you do so as a representative only, representing even those who did not vote for you. It is a sign of mature politics. Equally, it is not a sign of weakness when an opposition party makes appointment with the ruling party to discuss matters of national concern and interest, or even alert it of opportunities and threats to the nation.

I am here reminded of our traditional Dare. It embraced all the opposing views with a view to coming with the best. It was not compartmentalised into those who always sided with the chief and those always in opposition. The chief held the agenda and the Dare produced the outcome. Our political discourse should derive from our culture and be a natural progression of who we have always been.

We buy in the same shops and send our children to the same schools.

We drink the same water, breathe the same air and use the same roads. Our threats and challenges remain the same and so is our common future. We have a common heritage and national identity. That is all more important than the parties we belong to. We should be driven to the political parties of our choice more by our desire to see positive change and uplifting of the lives of the general citizenry, than our ego trips to dominate the lives of others. More by our desire to serve than to be served and rob the very people who vote us into power.

More by the desire to place our countries in a more competitive position in the community of nations than the privilege to collaborate with aliens in the exploitation of our nations as comprador representatives of foreign capital and nations.

Zimbabwe has a bright future, if only we introspect and become humble enough to admit our errors, correct them and move on with a new mindset. It is not about gamesmanship and our abilities to outpace each other in attaining political power, but most importantly, about drawing a line not to cross in such competition and knowing when to collaborate and work together as nationals.