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Morgan Tsvangirai

Itayi Garande
THE MDC-T has always been feeble in its public diplomacy, and involved in pitch-rolling to convince the Zimbabwean public that they were the only party that can deliver change to them.The mistakes made in the inclusive Government at party level sealed the party’s fate with the public; and at the individual level, Tsvangirai’s personal problems with various women was a reputational disaster because it challenged, with diametric precision, the MDC-T’s claim that their leader was an infallible man.

Tsvangirai’s personal life secretly dismayed some of his senior colleagues, who felt that it would reinforce the electorate’s anxieties about the MDC-T and its capacity to challenge Zanu-PF.

Those anxieties are about to take a new twist with the showdown that Tsvangirai started with the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC), the Southern African Development Community (Sadc) and the African Union (AU), by undermining their positions over the elections in Zimbabwe.

These groups said the July 31 2013 harmonised elections were free, fair and credible, and Tsvangirai declared them “null and void”.
This showdown will define his destiny — and the future direction of the party.

The MDC-T party may bask in the comfort that its supporters with their nasty political stunts and chants have been paying tribute to Tsvangirai’s recent announcement — reviving, in a debased form — the rage and alternative political culture of protest politics that he inspired since the late 1990s.

However, that culture was only going to last for so long. Tsvangirai should understand that politics is not about the protection of an inherited political consensus but the precise needs of the time. Today, Tsvangirai and the MDC-T face five serious problems.

Firstly, the political situation today is different from that in 2008 when the MDC-T had a simple majority in the House of Assembly and could swing the country’s politics in its favour.

As it looks certain that Zanu-PF is headed for a two-thirds majority in Parliament, an MDC-T boycott will not affect the running of Government in a manner that it did back in 2008.

The Finance Act and a Budget to run the country can still be passed by Zanu-PF alone, unlike in 2008. The country will not become ungovernable as the situation was in 2008.

The second is that the MDC-T candidates who have already won constituencies will have no appetite to run again, and may not be endeared to Tsvangirai’s call for non-participation in Parliament.

They spent a long time campaigning and connecting with the electorate. They do not have the energy to campaign again and there’s no guarantee they will win if another election is called.

Thus Tsvangirai risks being a rogue operator, supported by a few sycophants and this will disintegrate the MDC-T further than it already is. He faces a revolt from those MDC-T radicals, determined not to let Zimbabwe tumble over the precipice, want their party leader to change utterly his tactics and leadership style.

The people of Zimbabwe are getting wearied with the MDC-T leader’s protest politics.
What Tsvangirai has to master is explanatory politics of Zanu-PF, which has instinctively framed policies and beliefs in language and imagery that cut through to the nation’s cerebral cortex, its heart and its guts — for example — indigenisation and empowerment policies. Tsvangirai must present himself as a leader, not manager; not a custodian but a liberator for his politics to resonate with the voter psyche in Zimbabwe.

Too many MDC-T politicians still prefer sourness to action, and behave as if they cannot wait to be disappointed.
People deplore these moaning minnies of all kinds. The MDC-T party is now seen to have turned inward, and to be indulging its own priorities rather than addressing the anxieties of the electorate, therefore it is sunk.

The passage of time from 2008 has underlined how crucial it is to ensure that politicians also applaud the values of care, nurture and solidarity that protect the vulnerable at times of change. The MDC-T should now recognise that the texture and culture of politics have changed fundamentally since their five years in office, and cannot use the same narrative of 2008 and win elections.

The third is that the MDC-T has already said there’s no funding available for elections, so they cannot call for another election without telling the Zimbabwean people, Sadc and AU where the money will come from.

If they manage to reveal where the money will come from, they will be seen as liars because they said it wasn’t there before.
This will not bode well for a party which has broken its own cast-iron guarantees given at the beginning of the inclusive Government — that they will increase civil service salaries; repair the economy and deliver excellence in public services.

The fourth is that Sadc and AU will not discredit the work of their own observers by agreeing with the MDC-T position that the election was flawed.
They have already acknowledged there’s no perfect Voters’ Roll, and we also know that there will be no election that will please everyone, so the barometer should be Sadc and the AU.

Already Sadc facilitator president Zuma of South Africa has shown no appetite for accepting, without evidence, the MDC-T claim that the election was “null and void”.

He wants solid evidence to contrast the Sadc observers’ position from which he takes his cue. Even if that evidence was forthcoming, it is not clear whether it would warrant nullifying the harmonised election or justifying another dysfunctional GNU.

The current Constitution has no provision for the GNU or for the PM position, and it would be against the people’s wish to make the first amendment to the Constitution to justify political ambitions of a party they voted out of power.

That would undemocratic. Tsvangirai’s reasons for the nullification of the election are also very abstract and incoherent.
The referendum was held with the same Voters’ Roll and there’s no evidence that the alleged disenfranchised were MDC-T supporters.

Delays in delivering ballots affect all parties not just the MDC-T, and a flawed Voter’s Roll affects all parties. Tsvangirai does not have evidence to substantiate his claims.

For example, his claim that there was “Unauthorised movement of voters from their wards (leading to almost 40 percent voters being turned away and disenfranchised)” is based on some whimsical reasoning and is playing fiddle with numbers to justify his loss.

How did he come up with that figure? He also cannot justify how he managed to find out about the “unaccounted for voters, especially in farming areas”.

The fifth is that the international community will not just ignore Sadc and AU positions as that would create international tension over a national issue.

The regional organisations would want to assert their authority and have their position respected. The times of Tony Blair and George Bush, who had an appetite for Zimbabwean issues, is no more.

Besides, the European Union, the United States and Britain have already said they prefer to follow the lead of regional states.
Tsvangirai and the MDC-T are in a quandary. There’s not much political leverage, except to concede defeat and retain the respect of the regional groups (Sadc and AU) and the international community.

Anything short of that will undermine Tsvangirai’s leadership and push the party to oblivion. If the MDC-T fails to handle this situation carefully, Tsvangirai risks becoming the political mouse that roared, sealing his leadership fate.

There is no future in the politics of nostalgia, of the situation in 2008. Against claims to the contrary, President Mugabe has never been a nostalgist, marooned in the past, like Tsvangirai.

Quite the opposite: he may invoke history lessons in his speeches, but his energy flows from his desire to build Zimbabwe to a better future, through indigenisation and empowerment.

The worst possible tribute to this towering figure would be to look backward with a yearning eye for violence and destruction for personal aggrandisement.
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