A picture, as Napoleon Bonaparte said, is worth a thousand words. The picture accompanying this piece is one of the best examples. It gives the ordinary person the deceptions that we often get from the political elite where they would want them to believe that they do not see eye-to-eye, when the opposite is the truth.

The date for this picture was Saturday, August 3 2013.
The event and venue is the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission’s 2013 harmonised elections Command Centre at the Harare International Conference Centre.

It was a nail-biting moment as the media, political party representatives and the media awaited the announcement of the presidential results by ZEC chairperson Justice Rita Makarau.

The other results had already been announced when this picture was taken.
You don’t need someone from Mars to tell you that Senator Obert Gutu, who was chief election agent for MDC-T presidential candidate Mr Morgan Tsvangirai, was in good spirits as he shared lighter moments with some of the Zanu-PF top brass — Cdes Rugare Gumbo, Sidney Sekeremayi and Emmerson Mnangagwa. All of them were waiting for that final result, but they still “joked” and laughed.

This was not for the camera.
In fact, it can easily be concluded that the young Turk (Senator Gutu) was probably getting words of wisdom from people who have seen and heard it all.

Obert Gutu, MDC-T  presidential candidate`s chief election agent  (extreme right),sharing a llighter momen with senior Zanu PF members Cdes. Rugare Gumbo; Sydney Sekeramayi and Emerson Mnangagwa just before the announcement of the presidential results on August 3 at the Harare International  Conference Centre

Obert Gutu, MDC-T presidential candidate`s chief election agent (extreme right), sharing a lighter moment with senior Zanu PF members Cdes Rugare Gumbo, Sydney Sekeramayi and Emerson Mnangagwa just before the announcement of the presidential results on August 3 at the Harare International Conference Centre

But politics being politics, I was astounded by the footage of a visibly angry Senator Gutu and the name-calling soon after the announcement of the presidential election results.

He called them farcical and a joke of the decade. Asked why he sat through it all if he felt the results were a sham and a farce, he answered that he only did it because he wanted to see how far this joke of the decade would end.

Events of the past fortnight had made me believe that those moments of unbelief and deep emotional anger were over and that Senator Gutu as a man of letters would want his party and the nation to move on, but it doesn’t seem so.

The opinion piece titled “MDC-T: it’s not over until it’s over” and penned by Senator Gutu, which I read on newzimbabwe.com on August 26, expounds on the claims he made on the evening of August 3: “On July 31, 2013 the gallant and peace-loving people of Zimbabwe were not defeated.
“No.

“They were not.
“They are winners. They won the fight but they didn’t get the victory that they rightly deserved. On July 31, 2013, evil temporarily succeeded over good. This is but a pyrrhic victory, a hollow victory, a meaningless and bastardised version of the people’s will. It is a harvest of fear. A manifestation of a dictatorship gone awry. An empty expression of political dominance.”

The million-dollar question is: why is the MDC-T top leadership so keen to put words into the mouths of the people of Zimbabwe?
No amount of finger-pointing will take away the truth and how people expressed that truth.

Senator Gutu added: “This was a David and Goliath battle. Goliath was the state and David was the people. Unfortunately, Goliath proved to be invincible this time around and unlike the biblical David, the people were caught flat-footed and they were dealt a deadly and massive sucker punch”.

Since when do we interpret biblical stories to suit our situations, and in the process changing the content of that biblical message?
Luke Tamborinyoka, MDC-T leader’s spokesperson, did the same a week ago when he disastrously compared and contrasted President Mugabe and Mr Tsvangirai to the biblical personalities, Jacob and Esau.

He also claims that the alleged rigging led to the resignation of two ZEC commissioners.
While I reserve comments on Mkhululi Nyathi, I’ll make a few remarks on Professor Joe Feltoe.

If MDC-T claims that his resignation was in protest to their alleged rigging saga, then it is quite unfortunate that the learned professor only did so after all the results had been announced, and when he had also announced results of some of the constituencies.

It is ironic that Prof Feltoe would endorse the results that he “knew” were “rigged” by announcing them and declaring the winners as duly elected members of the National Assembly. It is also ironic that the majority of the results that he announced were from MDC-T’s strongholds.
Then we have the never-dying Nikuv saga.

Wrote Senator Gutu: “When some shadowy company called Nikuv makes sure that the national voters’ roll remains a closely guarded secret, then you know that you can never hold a free and fair election that will pass the test of legitimacy . . .”

Nikuv has become a thorn in the flesh for MDC-T, so it seems, but the Mail & Guardian report of August 16, 2013 paints a different picture.
MDC-T still has to comment on the report’s allegations by accepting and/or denying them.

The report alleges that Mr Tsvangirai, his deputy Thokozani Khupe and the chairperson of the Women’s Assembly, Theresa Makone, are in fact “Nikuv clients”.

It details the work done by a Nikuv subsidiary company for these “clients”, including the drip irrigation project they installed for Mr Tsvangirai at his rural home in Buhera.

Wrote the Mail & Guardian: “The Movement for Democratic Change is crying foul over the alleged role of Nikuv International Projects in rigging Zimbab­we’s July 31 general elections, but reports on Friday (August 16) suggested that the party’s top brass, including party leader Morgan Tsvangirai, was dealing with the Israeli company as early as last year through a subsidiary that deals in agricultural equipment”.
If this is true, why has it become so convenient for the MDC-T to describe Nikuv as a shadowy company?

We also wonder why Senator Gutu did not respond to Lindiwe Zulu’s claims that the MDC negotiators failed during the Global Political Agreement talks facilitated by South African President Jacob Zuma.

Peter Fabricius and Peta Thornycroft, writing in the Sunday Independent, quote a senior SADC official privy to the negotiations as saying: “In those meetings we tried to make the MDCs talk, but they remained silent and allowed Zanu-PF’s chief negotiator Patrick Chinamasa to overshadow them.
“We could not say anything more because during negotiations we were supposed to remain neutral, but one could feel the MDCs were playing underdogs when they were the ones who had been previously short-changed.”

What is most worrying are the double standards displayed by the MDC-T and their readiness to participate in processes they would later claim to be fraudulent and illegitimate because the outcome would not be in their favour.

We remember that instead of concentrating on the so-called reforms, they were seized with the election fever and held primary elections before Zanu-PF.

In fact, at some point it was as if the election would be a one-man horse as impressions were being created that it is the “party of excellence”.
Now in this post-election period, although they are crying foul, they are still willing to enjoy the little that they got and the appointment and/or election of mayoral candidates is currently in full swing within the MDC-T.

This is notwithstanding that President Mugabe has not yet appointed his Cabinet.
As of August 27, they had announced that their party’s national executive had “settled for Obert Gutu for the Harare Metropolitan Province mayoral post”.

Senator Gutu did not deny these developments but remarked that he was “humbled by the (MDC-T) party leadership’s confidence in me and I will try my level best to give it my all to ensure Harare retains its sunshine city status”.

As a mayoral candidate, Senator Gutu might romp to victory just like President Mugabe.
But human nature being what it is, not all MDC-T members would be celebrating with him, because there are some who will believe that he does not deserve it. Lots of allegations would be thrown in his face, just as he is doing to Zanu-PF.

Instead of striving to move beyond the differences and move the nation forward, I found it sad that someone who might be the mayor of Harare feels this bitter almost a month after the election was held.

How will he unite the people of the city if he still thinks that the MDC-T party was robbed?
How does he also want to become mayor if the election was a sham and farcical?
It would be a “rigged” mayoral election, conducted under a “farcical” election.

Another joke of the decade!
Harare needs to be transformed because in the past decade or so, it lost its Sunshine City status.
Whoever will be mayor working together with Government will have to work on strategies to transform the city from infrastructure to service delivery.

As a Harare resident, I know what a mammoth task the Government and the next mayor face.
They need money, willpower, good strategies and unity of purpose to revive the lost decade.
No matter how intriguing it might sound, people cannot stay in this election mood. We all need to pick our pieces and move on, but in the process see what lessons we learnt from this seemingly bruising process.

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