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good example as to why some citizens have suspicious feelings toward the intentions of politicians.
This week we will highlight the fact that at times the role of a politician, where instant decisive and important decisions need to be made concerning the survival of his political party, he has no other option but to lie to safeguard the interests of the party.

Political struggles are real and as we move towards elections, the struggles are going to become nasty and at times brutish.

At the burial of the Headlands boy, Prime Minister Tsvangirai stated that he was once given a “matchbox” with which to burn the country, although he would not accept it.
This implies that as a “good man” the PM single handedly averted civil war.

Isn’t it that Minister Biti once acknowledged that had it not been for President Mugabe, a lot of horrible things would have happened in this country if he had not said “No”?

It is up to the readers to see whom they can credit for being an ambassador of peace, the one who claims that he is or the one whom people who at times criticise him say he is.

Tsvangirai thinks he is so popular that he can incite Zimbabweans to fight against each other, all for his sake.

Such blind allegiance to a political leader can only happen in a country where 90 percent of the inhabitants are morons or fools.

It is therefore assumed that ordinary Zimbabweans as mere idiots will kill each other in order for a few MDC elites and their children to live happily ever after.

Whose children are willing to carry weapons to fight for the interests of politicians?
Whose family members are willing to occupy the vacant space in graveyards as to prove that there is violence in Zimbabwe? Whose relatives are willing to follow a path of violence and destruction as to merit a call by the international system for military intervention? These politicians have their own children, relatives, siblings and folks, so why not sacrifice them? Who in his/her right senses is willing to perish in order for some of these thieves to get in to power?

Who is willing to die so that an undeserving charlatan becomes the president?
Who should shed the blood of his/her fellow Zimbabweans as to help catapult the MDC to power?
We strongly believe that the PM and his cronies should make their own martyrs out of wire or clay who are willing to die on their behalf.

Whose children should be cannon fodder for such misplaced struggles for power?
Zimbabwean parents are sending their children to school, sacrificing everything they have to enable their offspring to have a brighter future.

No parent wants his/her child to be neither a martyr for any political party nor a thug who is used by other people to help them get into political office.

Once the power-hungry political idiot assumes power through the sacrifices of other people’s children he/she will soon forget about them.

Without any blinkers, what other miracle of good governance do we expect from some of our politicians which is better than what they have shown us so far which is raw thievery, disrespect for rule of law, corruption, poor service delivery, sexual escapades, pot bellies and round necks, idiocy, dullness and above all the insatiable love for power.

Voting concerns choices people make on whom they want to govern them. The strategy of trying to portray oneself as a saint and the others as devils has been used time and time again in the game of politics.

Of course, you cannot be a better devil in politics.
Saints do not crave for earthly possessions, neither do they seek earthly power. It is said that a man who was nothing but religious would be a saint, for he would be completely lacking in worldly possessions.

Are we therefore to be duped into believing that politicians from the MDC are saints and they do not also want to benefit from the advantages one gets when in power?

Those who engage in political struggles are not saints; they can only be moral at times and nothing else. Politicians are good at blaming their opponents of being violent while taking themselves as good people.

This is merely done to woo voters to their side.
In politics, a man who was nothing but moral would be a fool, for he would be completely lacking in prudence. MDC politicians are not fools; they are playing their political game prudently as to win the support of those of us who are gullible or easy to fool. All politicians engage in power struggles which in a way involve some degree of violence. No power struggle can be violent free.

The violence can be unleashed on party supporters and opponents alike. If you want the yolk of an egg you first break it. To get into power you use violence.
No politician is immune from that.

The violence which is usually unleashed on political opponents depends on the situation or circumstances on the ground and it can either be physical, psychological, economic or social.
As Zimbabweans, we should be on the look-out for people whose obsession for power will make the whole nation regret in years to come.

Remember Hitler, he plunged Germany into a Second World War merely to satisfy his selfish ego.
It is now a common fact in politics that a man who is nothing but political man is a beast, for he completely lacks in moral restraints.

There is absolutely no morality in the way the Headlands death was handled by these heartless and selfish power-seeking politicians.

Where on earth is our own humanism as Africans?
It is not that MDC-T politicians, their donor-funded media houses and their imperialist friends do not know that some of these issues are over exaggerated or heavily inflated, what they simply want is to have an advantage over Zanu-PF.

These politicians see it as necessary (no matter what we might think) to preserve the interests of their party and this quest for power takes precedence over all other considerations.
“Necessity” knows no laws and morality has no place when the interests of a political party are at stake.

MDC-T wants to win the next election at whatever cost even if it means lying, cheating or calling for external military intervention.

Death in the case of Christpowers loses its meaning or what it really stands for as it is manipulated to justify political ends.

In this case, it was used as a means to achieve a political end.
At times, politicians use deceit, falseness, trickery, deception and treachery which they justify as a lesser evil.

Max Weber clearly brings this point out when he says: “He who lets himself in for politics, that is, for power and force as means, contracts with diabolical powers and for his action it is not true that good can follow only from good and evil only from evil, but that often the opposite is true. Anyone who fails to see this is, indeed, a political infant.”

The morality appropriate to politics is not one based on ideals, but is a morality where actions are judged according to the good consequences they promote for the good of the political party.
When the entire survival of a political party is at stake, no consideration of what is just or unjust, merciful or cruel, praiseworthy or shameful is allowed to intervene. On the contrary, every other considerations of good or bad, moral or evil are set aside and the best course alone is taken which preserves the existence and survival of the political party.

We might write pages and pages of such heartlessness but in the end politicians will always prefer that which is diabolical so long as it gives them an edge or an advantage over their opponents.
What the opponents should do is to counter such tactics using their own strategies as well.
Ruthless strategies are therefore advocated by politicians to preserve power and to create and maintain a strong party, the main purpose of which is to improve the chances of their party in garnering more support. It really doesn’t matter if the tactic used is inhumane as in the way the death of the Headlands boy was handled. Man is evil, self-centred, egocentric and very selfish. Politicians are at times really very heartless.

In the game of politics, it is very unrealistic and naïve to think that you can get into power without resorting to dubious means.

Will the real moral man in MDC-T please stand up? Politicians always pursue power, at their best they are liars and at their worst they are beasts.

In the face of the coming elections, upholding of some rules and principles such as non-publication of falsehoods, rule of law, transparency, free and fair elections and tolerance will be dismissed as naïve.

Many a times, politicians have justified infringing these rights as a lesser evil, necessary to boost the support of their political party.

Those who oppose such violations do not understand what politics really stands for.
All too often in politics private, corporate or commercial interests and controversial ideological ambitions are camouflaged as the general interests of the whole political party.

The death of the Headlands boy has been turned by MDC-T political elites into a political campaign to safeguard their political interests and goals which are camouflaged in the cloak of being victims of violence.

The elites tend to benefit from this strategy more than the supporters.
Here, MDC-T politicians merely adopted a pragmatic stance for the survival of their party through a lot of negative publicity against Zanu-PF which they greatly need towards the pre-election, election and post-election period to secure local and international sympathy.

Moral values esteemed on mercy and forgiveness of enemies would not strengthen their strategy or lead to the consequences that they desired.

It is of course necessary for a political leader to appear merciful, faithful, humane, religious, upright, and to be so, but with a mind so framed that should he require not to be so, he may be able and know how to change to the opposite as to advantage his political party.

The type of decision that a politician has to make differs greatly from those faced by those within other professions.

Their decisions, for instance, may be targeted to swaying voter behaviour or in affecting the political choices of a greater number of people and, as such, politicians need to do things that private individuals ought not to do, such as falsifying facts, fabricating events and deceiving the masses.

In the coming months all progressive Zimbabweans should brace themselves for a plethora of very dirty tricks and strategies which will come from all political camps.

Bowden Mbanje and Darlington Mahuku are lecturers in International Relations at Bindura University of Science Education.