Zim: End of history, opposition is nigh Tapiwa Mashakada
Tapiwa Mashakada

Tapiwa Mashakada

Tichaona Zindoga Political Editor
WE have just exposed the duplicity of the opposition MDC-T in which by day it purports to disagree, trash even, Government policy initiatives but by night admit the efficacy or relevance of the same.

In a leaked social media chat, a top official and an MDC-T economics mind, Tapiwa Mashakada all but acknowledged that President Mugabe had spoken to the real situation that the country is facing when he made the State of the Nation Address last week — and knew just what had to be done.

Of course, Mashakada made the bizarre claim that Zanu-PF had pilfered his ideas to come up with the 10-Point Plan and bringing Africa’s richest man, billionaire Aliko Dankote.

The immediate reaction one would have is to point at the obvious facetiousness and hypocrisy of the opposition.

However, when you get to the bottom of the matter one realises that actually the ruling party, zanu-PF is doing the right things, at the right time, which even the opposition has been forced to acknowledge.

The ruling Zanu-PF is pursuing an economic agenda under the aegis of the Zimbabwe Agenda for Sustainable Socio Economic Transformation, Zim-Asset, which has just been buttressed by the 10-Point Plan for Economic Growth that President Mugabe announced last week.

Where the former set the tone for economic recovery and socio-economic transformation, the latter is the pitch.

The pitch is just getting right and those with ears can hear and the results are being seen on the ground and this is what is worrying the opposition.

What’s there to steal?

But let us engage Mashakada’s claim that Zanu-PF is adept at stealing MDC-T’s ideas.

This is a ridiculous claim — and even if we were to concede that ideas could be stolen, we must state that only ideas that are on paper can rightly be patented.

Now, in the last elections, Zanu-PF and MDC-T had manifestos, which spoke to the respective parties’ blueprints for the economy and society.

Zanu-PF’s message was anchored on “indigenisation, empowerment and employment creation”.

The MDC-T had its JUICE blueprint, entailing “Jobs, Upliftment, Investment Capital and the Environment”.

Whereas the point of convergence, even with different terminology, would only be around jobs/employment creation, there is hardly any other similarity between the two manifestos.

The Zanu-PF manifesto won, was transformed into Zim-Asset and has now been tweaked into the 10 Point Plan for Economic Growth, which even the most adamant of critics of the ruling party have come to acknowledge.

The two parties were naturally pursuing different trajectories and it is rather surprising that the MDC-T can claim that its ideas have been stolen.

How and where?

It is also useful at this point to highlight the obvious fatuity in MDC-T claims that land reform was its idea, when it is clear as day that land has been foremost on the agenda of the revolution and the revolutionary party for over a century, and, as at 2000, for 110 years since the first resistance to settler theft of land.

Every other claim that the MDC-T can make regarding winning ideas is plain theft on its own and an attempt to seek relevance.

But to illustrate how Mashakada was lying when he claimed his ideas were stolen, and the paucity of ideas that afflicts the MDC-T as a party, its former secretary general Tendai Biti has been handy.

At a dialogue in Harare in March last year, Biti famously debunked the myth that MDC-T lost elections due to rigging but due to the inferiority of its message, which did not appeal to the people.

He said: “zanu in the last election had a very simple message, (of) ‘bhora mugedhi’. Even a little woman in Chendambuya or Dotito just knew one thing, bhora mugedhi.

“Perhaps we were too sophisticated, but what was our message because the message of change of 2000 is not the message for now.

“We were selling hopes and dreams when Zanu-PF was selling practical realities . . . I think we didn’t do well in 2013 (harmonised elections) . . . We had JUICE, yes, it was good but trying to explain it to Mai Ezra in Chendambuya, you understand what I am saying? So the issue of articulating an alternative discourse which is walked and lived is very important.”

We cannot belabour these remarks.

The last point about alternative discourse is, however, important to point out.

MDC-T has failed in both formulating an alternative plan and creating alternative discourse.

It is for that simple reason that they have failed to win over the electorate, even when the odds were seemingly stacked against Zanu-PF.

In other words if MDC-T had that which it claims to have lost to Zanu-PF’s pilferage, why the hell did they not sell it to the people?

Weathering the storm

It is clear from a simple analysis that the ruling Zanu-PF has weathered probably its worst storm in 50 years that came in the form of the regime change project that the west created at the turn of the century in, and around MDC.

There are a couple of things that make pillars for this project, namely:

Political pressure by opposition parties and civil society;

Economic warfare anchored on sanctions and currency war;

Information and propaganda; and

Diplomacy

The opposition to Zanu-PF was created — or rather fanned — by the west through the creation and funding of the MDC since 1999. The opposition movement in broad consists of labour (through sponsored unions), students, churches and local interest groups which would be anything from peaceful to violent.

These have been enjoying a close relationship in the attempt to unseat President Mugabe and his party.

Billions have been poured via organisations such as the National Endowment for Democracy, George Soros’ Open Society initiatives, Westminster Foundation, USaid, and many others.

These outfits that have been pouring money into the Zimbabwe regime change project have even come to bemoan the fact that it has all come to naught.

In other countries, they bemoan, they would have achieved regime change.

The sanctions that the West imposed on Zimbabwe were supposed to aid the implosion of the country through hyperinflation that would wipe away savings; shortage of basic goods because of the lack of foreign currency and the virtual stalling of the country because of the lack of money.

Zimbabwe could be the only country in history, ever to remain standing after the stratospheric-type of inflation which has not been experienced anywhere else, including in war zones.

These conditions would also naturally create conditions for open dissent and rebellion and this would lead to regime change.

The ruling party withstood all this, perhaps miraculously.

How it also withstood the massive propaganda from paid local activist and activist organisation and global media is something that is equally baffling.

And lastly, on the diplomatic front, Zimbabwe equally stood its ground and in particular has Russia and China for standing in the way of the west attacking the country on the pretext of the contentious Responsibility to Protect — Libya-style.

The way regional, continental and international stakes were stacked against Zimbabwe illustrate just how the country managed to weather a storm.

It was supposed to be a pariah — and fall, but it didn’t.

Winning over

There is a certain belief that when someone is down, the depths that Zimbabwe had sunk, the only way they can go is up.

For wit, if Zimbabwe faced the hyper-inflationary era of 2008 what can come worse?

Certainly not this animal called deflation, whatever it is!

Things could be hard at the moment but it is inconceivable that they will get anywhere close to 2006-2008 when screws were tightening everyday with American ambassadors here rubbing their hands in glee that the tipping point would be reached.

The Europeans were singing the same song and they were systematically squeezing the life out of Zimbabwe.

It did not work.

Now the same Europeans have been relaxing the sanctions, removing most of them, and they have been eager to find opportunities here.

America is rather coy, or say is prouder, but they also look forward to normalise relations fully.

Meanwhile, the world’s second largest economy is willing to dance with Zimbabwe, and has won the courtship.

It is a full circle, like some end of history.

This is where Mashakada complains that, “I fear and warn that this will leave MDC irrelevant.”

Zanu-PF has weathered the storm, won over friends and foe and it can only move forward.

This illustrates that Zanu-PF is the only game in town and Mashakada’s hunch, and everybody’s hope, is that we are in the cusp of something great.

And it can only come thanks to the current status quo.

It may be just the right time to kiss the opposition goodbye.

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