A consistent, refrain from the local opposition, among its litany of demands for reforms, is that it is not getting fair coverage from the public media.
The tune was no different ahead of this year’s July 30 harmonised elections. The issue was also highlighted in reports by various observer groups.
We forgive the visitors because some of them were acting on misinformation, others from a lack of background to the source of the political polarisation in Zimbabwe, which has also created a deplorable divide between the public and the private media.
Since the recent elections, MDC-Alliance has not helped to change the narrative; its behaviour has only taken us back to its treacherous birth in September 1999; despite the best efforts by President Mnangagwa to rehabilitate this odious creature.
Even the lying private media must acknowledge that President Mnangagwa not only appealed for peace throughout the election campaign, he offered to meet opposition party leaders to agree on a code of conduct to avoid further polarisation of Zimbabweans.
This was met with verbal insults from Alliance leader Nelson Chamisa. He behaved then as he does now as if he were the elected leader of this country. But that’s only the tail end of why the MDC and its leadership get the coverage they deserve from the public media. Until they reform to become a patriotic opposition deserving of respect, they should not expect the public media to endorse their toxic politics.
Here is the truth: The background fair-minded foreign observers may have missed and the private media makes a fetish of concealing is that besides protest sympathy from workers and students who were hardest hit by the effects of ESAP in the late 1990s, the MDC was formed chiefly to oppose the Land Reform Programme which was gathering pace then and white commercial farmers realised that legalistic challenges were futile.
They put everything into the MDC and scored two shock victories when Zanu-PF lost the constitutional referendum in February 2000, and the MDC won 57 seats in the parliamentary elections later the same year.
It would have been naïve for Morgan Tsvangirai and his party to expect positive coverage for opposing land reform which came at a cost of more 50 000 precious lives.
They can dupe the private media about human rights. To us a primary human right for any self-respecting people is ownership of their land.
When war veterans started forcibly occupying white farms, the opposition called for the imposition of economic sanctions on Zimbabwe. We know how generously the white world responded to that invitation and what happened to the economy. Zimbabweans still carry that yoke.
The opposition has never apologised for this iniquity. It is difficult to imagine how they expect fair, balanced, let alone positive coverage for this historical disgrace.
That is why their appeals for media reforms are such an insult. There is a national grievance which only the private media pretends not to know.
It’s only those with no sense of history or are prepared to sell their souls because of temporary economic setbacks who support the MDC’s sell-out agenda. The rural folk who sacrificed the most in the liberation war for their land remain Zanu-PF’s bedrock.
This year’s harmonised elections found the MDC’s nemesis, long time ruler former president Robert Mugabe gone. ED as the new leader of Zanu-PF gave Chamisa and his MDC-Alliance everything they wanted, except victory, which he could not hand them because it comes from the people.
Chamisa could not expect fair and balanced coverage from the public media when he was declaring that he would reject the result of the elections if he was not declared the winner. The public media cannot be expected to support individuals who reject the will of the people, who threaten what is unconstitutional, preach violence and undermine the rule of law.
Chamisa tried in vain to push the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission to break the law. Which sane editor would support such lawlessness? After losing the presidential race Chamisa still insists he is the president of Zimbabwe, Odinga-style. Last week, he wanted to install himself as some embittered emperor, all against the national Constitution. The public media saw the foolishness of this course of action where the private media saw “boldness”.
He has threatened to make the country ungovernable where President Mnangagwa has insisted that we leave elections behind us and focus on the economy. Which position serves people’s interests?
We have no doubt about the need for national peace and unity. That can be achieved if the MDC reforms and becomes a Zimbabwean party. Chamisa is the prodigal son whose soul needs to come back home.
If he persists in his madness, he will soon realise that no individual is above the law, even if they call themselves advocate. Meanwhile, he and his party get the coverage they deserve from the public media, until they reform, otherwise they have set the tone of how they will be covered in the next elections.
It’s a matter of national interest versus MDC- Alliance’s foreign agenda.