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Fungi Kwaramba Political Editor

A simple definition of democracy is a system of governance in which people choose their leaders by voting for them.

That very definition, in its simplicity, was recently on display in the governing party Zanu PF when thousands of eligible members cast their votes in provincial elections.

Without holding any brief for the ruling party, this season will again see its structures casting their votes in primary elections to elect candidates who will represent the ruling party in the forthcoming by-elections.

This yet again, is a reflection of the supremacy of democracy in the revolutionary party, which waged a protracted struggle to ensure one man one vote.

Just to show how serious he is in sticking to democracy, President Mnangagwa cracked the whip on some rogue party members who sought to subvert the will of the people.

Now that the by-elections have been slated for March 26, and in the revolutionary party, where democracy thrives, more than 119 candidates have submitted their CVs aspiring to contest in the 28 parliamentary seats, most of which fell vacant after squabbles in the opposition ripped the party into two antagonistic camps.

There is of course no prize for guessing which party has a historical habit of splitting into smithereens only to blame the ruling party for its self-inflicted wounds all wrought by the inbred fear of democracy which shockingly they purport to advance.

As the clock ticks towards the by-elections, serious democratic parties are set to hold primary elections, but not the Movement for (Un)Democratic Change, a misnamed political outfit that is choosing the tyrannical route of cherry-picking candidates for their dwindling base of supporters.

This sums up all the disillusionment and disenchantment of the few hangers-on in the party whose patience with the despotic tendencies of their tin-pot dictator leader is wearing thinner by the day.

Yes, the MDC led by Mr Nelson Chamisa would rather hand-pick candidates who kowtow to the leader’s caprices, or in the event of natural attrition or resignation use the undemocratic grassroots consensus position, in other words, imposition.

This will ultimately be the opposition party’s undoing, as noted by the Permanent Secretary of Information, Publicity, and Broadcasting Services; “One cannot be an autocratic party leader who subverts internal democracy and suddenly becomes a democrat at the national level. It can’t. The microcosm reflects the macrocosm. Simple”.

Some bit of history perhaps.

The MDC was formed in 1999, at the behest of some privileged whites, who controlled the means of production in the form of land while the majority of Zimbabweans eked a living on the margins of society.

But nay, the white man, determined to perpetuate his monopoly on levers of production, created a puppet that endures to the present day, albeit, pilloried and paled by time vagaries and the mighty will of the people of Zimbabwe.

Like a puppet on a string, the opposition supports the baneful sanctions imposed on Zimbabwe by Western countries to make Zimbabweans, in foisted opprobrium, turn against the Zanu PF Government.

During hearings of the US sanctions laws at the turn of the millennium, the country’s former assistant secretary for African Affairs Chester Crocker infamously said: “To separate the Zimbabwean people from Zanu PF, we have to make their economy scream, I hope you Senators, have the stomach for what you have to do” and indeed just as the western world has done throughout history, including in the 16th century when ships with hulls filled with black human cargo, they had a bellyful to pass the laws, which endures to this day, and which is incredibly supported by their Chihuahuas in the country.

For perspective, the illegal sanctions have bled the country, that were invited by the MDC, in all its hues and fractures has bled the country of no less than US$100 billion, the country’s cost of borrowing is over 1 000 percent higher than the average in most countries worsening the Government’s ability to provide basic social services.

Of course that has skewed the political playing field in favour of the Western surrogates, supposedly giving the MDC an edge, only that Zimbabweans see beyond the western machinations through its smoke and mirrors, like the discerning revolutionaries that they are, Zimbabweans can tell between puppets and patriots.

But that was a digression, albeit a necessary one to demonstrate that the party that split first in 2005, then in 2014, then in 2020 and might still split again this year is not a democratic movement, no, it was never such, but an instrument of the country’s erstwhile colonisers who seek to undemocratically remove the democratically elected Zanu PF Government.

That is why up to now, the MDC led by Chamisa refuses to accept the people’s will as was expressed in the 2018 harmonised elections.

Like the cry-babies they are, they will certainly sob in 2023 when they lose the elections because apart from furiously but futilely speaking on social media platforms, the people know who is building them roads, dams, schools and has against all odds presided over the growth of the country’s economy even under the yoke of the illegal sanctions.

So when the time comes, which is fast approaching by each passing day, the MDC must not blame anyone for their decline, which appears terminal, because they are their greatest foes as they have refined a habit of flouting democratic tenets, which their political adversaries in Zanu PF are sticklers to.

In the process of disregarding what they purportedly stand for, everything else falls apart to the deafening silence of political upstarts who never learn even without a name from their history littered with splits.

Of course, the party, a pot-pourri of various disenchanted elements also suffers from the absence of an ideological grounding, but that is a story for another day.