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Elliot Ziwira, Senior Writer

The year 2019 opened with rumours of talks among the country’s major political players.

As the year progressed the talks gained traction, especially so with the coming on board of the Zimbabwe Council of Churches (ZCC), and demonstrations that rocked the country in January.

Feeding on the rumour, the desperation for talks was heightened.

Speculation about a Government of National Unity (GNU), whether real or imagined, well-intentioned or otherwise, inspired scrutiny as the year progressed.

Issues of constitutionalism, Church and politics and whether MDC-Alliance leader Nelson Chamisa deserved the attention that he was demanding came up for debate.

What was clear was that the year 2019 was the opportune moment to foster dialogue among key political players.

This came through the Political Actors Dialogue (Polad) platform that brought together political parties that fielded presidential candidates in the 2018 harmonised elections.

Enter Polad

On May 17, 2019, President Mnangagwa launched Polad with 17 political parties that participated in the presidential elections during the July 30, 2018 harmonised elections in attendance.

Speaking at the launch, the President said: “The dialogue we are launching today will undoubtedly leave a lasting imprint on our country’s political landscape and help to contribute to the turnaround of the country’s socio-economic fortunes.”

“This platform is designed to be a vibrant forum through which we proffer solutions to the challenges that confront us as a nation, through peaceful, open and transparent discourse.

“The culture of dialogue we begin today, must indeed be synonymous with us as a nation and as a people. This journey we are embarking on, must ultimately lead us towards improving our democratic practices and culture.

“It must also lead us to a stage where we can compete and cooperate, always informed and guided by our national interests.”

It has to be recalled that President Mnangagwa has always extended his hand to the opposition even before the harmonised elections of July 30, 2018.

He could never tire of preaching peace, unity and harmony, even in the face of brickbats from some quarters of the opposition, who construed everything as political grandstanding.

At the launch of Polad, he reiterated the same, as he outlined during his inauguration in 2018.
Persistent rumours: Dialogue means Chamisa

Even before the harmonised elections, opposition parties, especially MDC-Alliance fronted by Chamisa insisted that anything short of victory on their part could only be read as rigging, culminating in them spurning any calls for dialogue.

Anticipating delivery, the opposition party was already celebrating the bouncing baby, even before conception.

The celebrations were cut short when the midwife announced the delivery of the baby; the delivery they least expected. They had dismally performed in the elections.

Chamisa presumes that citizens, who, ironically are the source of his power, are docile and gullible.
In matters of unity and struggle there is a valid question that Amilcar Cabral (1973) raises, as is illustrated: “You have already clearly understood what the people are. The question we now pose is the following: against whom are our people struggling?”

If the people overwhelmingly articulated their voice through the harmonised elections of July 30, 2018 by giving President Mnangagwa and his party Zanu PF a five-year mandate to lead them, a fact that was withheld by the Constitutional Court (Concourt), should they keep on struggling; for whom and against whom?

Refusing to accept the outcome of the July 30, 2018 elections, Chamisa declared that it was a “coup against the people’s will”.

Even after losing a Concourt challenge against the electoral result, he remained adamant that he had won, which makes any calls for dialogue problematic.

Chamisa refuses to join Polad, because in his view, he is bigger than the initiative.

As the year 2019 closed, the persistent rumour from some mischievous quarters was that no dialogue without Chamisa holds sway.

But 2020 beckons that no individual is bigger than the collective.

The Holy Ghost speaks

On August 6, 2018, Father Frederick Chiromba, secretary-general of the Zimbabwe Catholic Bishops’ Conference, told Catholic News Service in a telephone interview from Harare that: “We have offered to mediate any election disputes as well as broader concerns.”

And the Zimbabwe Council of Churches (ZCC) said in its 2019 New Year statement that it was ready to provide the framework for dialogue between President Mnangagwa and Chamisa.

Said Reverend Dr Kenneth Mtata, the ZCC general-secretary: “We can choose the route of engagement or the route of conflict, the route of individual solutions or that of a shared vision, the route that entrenches greed or one that leads to the common good.

“As the Church of Jesus Christ, we serve as a sign of hope by being truthful in looking at the current challenges and their root causes.”

In November 2019, the Church declared that it wanted to be included in the dialogue being held under the auspices of Polad.

This, again, was revealed by Rev Mtata.

ZCC is made up of 26 churches with full membership, including the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Zimbabwe (ELCZ), 10 associate church bodies, among them the Roman Catholic Church, and three observer church organisations.

True, we can choose the road to destruction or the route to construction.

It is laudable that the Church is eager to foster dialogue, but there should be a clear line to follow in such a dialogue.

The Church should not be seen to be siding with one party.

As the prophetic voice of truth, the Church should preach the politics of love, forgiveness and reconciliation.

Love is the politics of peace, for the Bible is awash with politics, the politics of nations.
Human government is not independent of the influence of the Church, which is why most universal laws have a religious foundation.

However, as Castaneda and Vizcarrondo (2016) write in “Truth and Christianity”: “The Church must not meddle in partisan politics. The Church must not tell people whom or what party to vote for, unless the party in question has an intrinsically evil ideology . . . The Church may neither support a particular candidate nor a party.”

The Church should not impose its “own ecclesiastical laws on the rest of society that is not Catholic.”
It stands to reason that the Church and the State are separate and distinct, therefore, any dialogue or talk of dialogue should consider the universal truth and not party truth.

It is in this vein that the Church should outline the constitutional rights of the electorate, vis-à-vis the common good.

It is mindboggling that even before the election results were announced, and the ConCourt was still to make a ruling on Chamisa’s petition, the Church was already ready to mediate dialogue, as Father Chiromba said: “There is still a lack of trust between the people and Government” and that churches have “a big role to play in restoring that trust.”

Who is to be trusted, the one constitutionally declared the winner, or the one who uses hearsay to claim victory?

Chamisa is touted as the Holy Grail that our nation needs to move forward, but one wonders if indeed he has that capacity alone. What exactly is that sentiment premised on?

At this point in time it is only unity of purpose that can help us navigate out of the quagmire we are enmeshed in, and not tall talk or political grandstanding.

Losers cannot claim legitimacy through intimidation, or questioning the legitimacy of others, and the Church should beam that light.

Promotion of peace should begin by all of us accepting the reality that gouging each other’s eyes out only makes us all blind. If there is a time we needed each other more, it is now!

When Mbeki comes to town

On December 16 last year, former South African President Thabo Mbeki visited Zimbabwe and expressed confidence that the country has the capacity to take its challenges head on.

During his two-day visit, he met President Mnangagwa, Chamisa, leaders of political parties in Polad, the National Patriotic Front and the ZCC.

Before his departure on December 18, Mbeki, who said he had come at the invitation of President Mnangagwa, told journalists that he would return within two weeks to engage stakeholders who have requested to meet him.

As 2020 opens, the affable statesman is still within his two-week timeline, and may come back any moment from now. The rumour around his visit, and what it may bring to the nation state of Zimbabwe in the New Year, lingers on.

Way forward

With or without Mbeki, as Zimbabweans we have the capacity to solve our problems. It is from our weaknesses that we derive our strengths, and it is through positivity that we deride the negative aspects of the reality of our land.

But this can only come to pass if as a people we are unity driven from within, and aim for collective gain, by beaming to the world screen our story, not as outsiders but as participants, for after all, it remains our story; the story of our struggle.

It will not help us much to scald our feet, when the ultimate goal is to tread on to our preferred destiny, and gouge out our eyes in an attempt to inspire ideological vision.

As human beings, we should be guided by conscience, because after all deep inside we are good people, as Jung (1964) intimates: “Deep down, below the surface of the average man’s conscience, he hears a voice whispering, ‘There is something not right,’ no matter how much his rightness is supported by public opinion or moral code.”

Something is not right in the way we express whatever discontent or grievances we may have, and something isn’t right either, in the way we clamour for an eye for an eye.

It only makes us all blind.

As the New Year begins, there is need to go beyond rumour-mongering about talks, but to be part of the talks in a collective way knowing that we are as much a problem as a solution to our challenges.

Therefore, any talk of unity should project a shared vision, even among our proxies, either in the governing party, or the opposition.

The reality of our land is that we are polarised, and believe that our solution lies somewhere else.