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Tendai Biti

Nick Mangwana View From the Diaspora
IN recent times, there has been a push by vanquished opposition groups for what some have termed the National Transitional Authority (NTA) to run the affairs of Zimbabwe. The strangest thing is that this call is coming from the likes of compatriot Tendai Biti and Ibbo Mandaza. These are the very two

people who forcefully inserted themselves on a 5th of July 2016 Investment Conference which was being addressed by Finance Minister Patrick Chinamasa and Reserve Bank Governor John Mangudya which was convened by an organisation called Africa Confidential in London.

Their primary objective for making that trip was to come and countervail the efforts to unlock investment being made by the minister and the Governor.

Dr Mandaza did not get the visa for the trip. Apparently, he was considered not important enough. But Mr Biti did not only make the trip but he also made a spirited effort to insidiously undermine the efforts being made to turn around the economic fortunes of the country. Within a month of doing this he then turns around and gathers some clergy who see themselves as modern-day Muzorewas and starts an intellectually pretentious agenda for an NTA.

How duplicitous can one be? On the one hand, you sabotage the economy and on the other you want to come with a messianic attitude of a super patriot to the rescue? Why didn’t you ask for an NTA when you announced to the world that Zimbabwe had only $217 left in its current account?

Transitional governments are meant to manage institution building. Zimbabwe crafted an internationally lauded Constitution and institutions preceding therefrom are in place right now. The various commissions are almost all in place as well. What then is the purpose of this caretaker government when there is an elected government in place? Is this an attempt to gain power through the backdoor?

Everyone knows that the initial plan wanted by the NTA protagonists was for this to kick in once the Government had collapsed. So they did everything they could to make the Government crumble. How cynical is that? How conniving can people be really? They now realise that this is not going to happen.

There are failures by the Government. It’s disingenuous to pretend otherwise. But if Zimbabwe is in a crisis then it is partially man-made. If people who had lost an election had conceded defeat magnanimously a lot of what is happening in Zimbabwe would not be happening. Now the same people are seeking to replace an elected government with a constitutional illegitimacy?

Which elected government welcomes the intrusion of unelected third parties? What is the desired outcome of this illegitimacy?

Zimbabwe has many political parties as it is. So really there is a very broad participation in the political processes of the country. One of the reasons countries have NTAs is an effort to broaden political participation of the people. But no, this one is actually constricting the political participation that saw over 4 million people making a choice of who they wanted to govern them. This is some de-democratisation of the nation.

Transitional authorities are also normally a post-conflict arrangement. Where is that conflict in Zimbabwe? The only conflict we know is within those that cannot fathom why their own antipathy and aversion to Zanu-PF has no purchase or traction among the people. Congo, Burundi, Iraqi, Libya, and Lord Soames after the Lancaster House Constitutional Conference, these were post-conflict transitional authorities to manage the process to inclusivity.

In Zimbabwe everyone is included. They just lose elections. The negative sum politics (shaisano) or zero-sum game that Zimbabwe is experiencing is because it is the same politicians now calling for an NTA who are going around undermining Zimbabwe’s efforts at recovery. Of course, add to that corruption and the ruling party’s own factionalism.

Let’s talk about efficacy of an NTA. Which NTA has ever had cohesion? As an adulterated authority made up of disparate and competing interest groups. Who chooses who here? A third player? The role of the third party becomes more prominent in fact that the third party becomes the authority really.

In this case who will be the third party who underwrites this? Under what pretext, anyway? Competing interests and illegitimacy will ensure lack of effectiveness. Granted the GNU brought a lot of positives, and these would have continued had some decided to undermine the succeeding government by questioning its legitimacy by alleging rigging and mutating ballots!

What is wrong with conceding defeat when one loses an election really? There are even some who allege that the Commonwealth-run 1980 elections were rigged. But let’s leave that one. Why should we let unelected people take long-term decisions on behalf of the people? How do they make sure they still have the people on board? What is the source of their power? Those who are elected derive theirs from the people. Is this not an elitist arrangement taken in lieu of the people?

Clearly, these people have already started in their attempts to build an elite consensus. How different is that from the Rhodesian philosophy that blacks would only be allowed to vote provided they had a certain level of education and had certain assets? We saw this same thing during the constitution-making process when the wishes of the common folks were being disregarded by the elite who clearly believe that simple people are simpletons. Zanu-PF continues to win elections because they realise that universal suffrage means that every single individual has one vote – king or commoner, the professor and the illiterate. Not this elitist snobbery which disregards the wishes of the people.

And the people who are pushing this are politicians. Isn’t it clear they are trying to create avenues to gain State power through artifice? Now they are saying they will ask Zanu-PF to buy into this bastardised arrangement. The only free advice we can give them is to go and build strong linkages with constituencies and ask them for their votes.

That is how people gain popular mandates. As of now, no one mandated them to even talk on behalf of the people. We cannot have a manipulative self- appointed political aristocracy tampering with our democracy within three years of us benchmarking our democracy by a people-originated and people- supported Constitution. If they are really patriots, let the opposition stop working tirelessly for Zimbabwe’s isolation.

These guys have stoked instability by undermining normalcy and now they want to tell us normalcy will only come through something called an NTA? Well, compatriots, our Constitution has legislated for every democratic scenario possible. Tell the nation where in the Constitution you see an NTA.

So the elective process chose and continues to choose Zanu-PF to superintend over the affairs of the country. How does anyone really expect it to abdicate from that responsibility and hand over power to God knows who? How will the masses choose who will even participate in this arrangement?

Zimbabwe has an uncontested Constitution. Ninety-five percent of the population chose it. It frames how people want to be governed and which institutions safeguards the people against the excess of such a government. This columnist will support any effort to make those institutions deliver their constitutional mandate rather than to make them moribund for the sake of an elitist arrangement by spent political players seeking relevance.

Our Constitution is the foundation upon which all State and democratic institutions should be built upon. It is the only bedrock to any political arrangement that should be made. To amend it so as to accommodate failed political careers is to spit in the face of Zimbabweans who chose their Government only four months after they chose their Constitution. Let us not forget Zanu-PF now has enough majority to amend that Constitution. It has not done so because it regards it a sacrilege at this point. Please do not desensitise it to that idea.

To amend the Constitution, Zanu-PF’s assent is needed as it is the only party that has enough MPs to do that. So for this to happen whether it is Constitutional Amendment No. 21 or 1 it doesn’t matter, it needs Zanu-PF. Now how do you invite Zanu-PF to a process where you are going to ask it to give up what it has in hand so that it can fight for it afresh?

This is not because national considerations are giving way to partisan political considerations in Zanu-PF but because those that are trying to court Zanu-PF into getting into bed with them are trying not to use charm but bash it into submission by undermining its every move to normalise Zimbabwe’s economy by attacking the Lima efforts, bond note initiative as well re-industrialisation through a Buy Zimbabwe agenda. To them the suffering of Zimbabweans people doesn’t matter. They are just a means to an end.

Anyone who genuinely wants to alleviate the suffering of the people, should join the fight against corruption, take part in the fight against both political and economic isolation and help attract investment for the country by not painting a calamitous and distorted impression of this peaceful country. Above all, stop catastrophising your own country.