Tendai Biti’s, MDC Secretary General, “Hotseat” 25 April interview on S W Radio Africa with Violet Gonda was really disappointing and worrying. Disappointing because the missed the point; even when he had the benefit of hindsight. Worrying because the old Mr-Know-It-All paranoia of Mugabe was creeping in his demeanour.
Violet asked Biti whether the gallivanting from one Sadc country to the next which he and Tsvangirai had been doing since 6 April 2008 was not a waste of time, a “talk shop”, since Sadc leaders were not going to put pressure on Mugabe to step down. According Mugabe had relied on Sadc leaders for support in the past. They were Mugabe’s “midfielders and lynchpin” according to Tendai Biti.
So both Mr Biti and Tsvangirai started a marathon Sadc shuttle diplomas thinking MDC would steal a match on Mugabe! Two weeks of gallivanting was rewarded with the Sadc Heads of State Emergency Summit Meeting on 11 April. MDC wanted Sadc to pressure Mugabe to accept election defeat and set down.
By the time the Sadc Summit finally took place the leaders were confronted with a situation of wide spread violent outbreaks and a militarised Zimbabwe. Mugabe had turned to the war veterans and the green bombers to bolster his political standing; they were Mugabe’s really midfielders and lynchpins – not Sadc leaders!
Unless Sadc leaders were prepared to send foot soldiers all over Zimbabwe to hunt down the thugs causing all the mayhem, they was real nothing they could do to stop Mugabe doing as he pleased. Of course, if they dared to that they also knew Mugabe would escalate the situation by getting the Police and Army he had deployed all over the country already involved. None of the Sadc leaders was prepared to take on Mugabe and so, yes, the Summit became just another talk shop.
The UN is in exactly the same situation; it can never pass any resolution that will “hurt” Mugabe because China, among others will vote any such resolutions.
When the Zimbabwe Election Commission started dragging its feet in announcing the election results alarm bells should have started to ring in MDC quarters. When Tsvangirai held his Press Conference on the 1 st April – end of the third day when results should have been announce- he should rallying the Zimbabwe public to defend their vote in a speech of his life! The people would have supported a mass public demonstration or a stay away.
Tsvangirai would have presented Mugabe with further evidence, beside the electoral results, that he has massive public support and, more significantly, that he was ready to take over political power and rule the country.
Instead Tsvangirai call on the people to be patient. He ruled out calling for any mass demonstration for fear Mugabe will use that as the excuse to use violence and other repressive measures. In fact it was this displace of weakness that gave Mugabe the courage to deploy the war veterans, etc., and thus demonstrate that he may have lost the election but he is nonetheless the real and only political power in Zimbabwe!
Tendai Biti treated to rationalise MDC’s miscalculation by arguing that the nation is in the middle of a revolution and a “revolution is a process and not an event”. Well the Zimbabwe revolution is one “process” that should have ended in 1980 but did not for selfish reason on the party of Mugabe. Should have ended April 2008 but did not because MDC’s incompetence. As long as the nation has shallow leaders who do not have the humility to admit failure when they have failed and lack the vision to see the bigger national good beyond the individual interest; this process will ever end.
In the 25 April Interview it was evident that MDC’s miscalculation and blunders of the last few weeks still had not sunk in. Tendai Biti even total took a jibe at the critics of MDC’s gallivanting policy calling them “armchair” critics.
There three things Tendai Biti should know: 1) we can not all be in the driving seat 2) those who elect to hold public office must necessarily accept public criticism and 3) freedom of expression, the right to hold public officials to account and the right to a meaningful say in the governance of Zimbabwe is a fundamental right not a privilege.
The root cause of all Zimbabwe’s political and economic problems is that Mugabe has denied us all our basic and fundamental rights and freedoms on the shaky grounds that he is a war-hero and the rest of us, arm-chair critics, are not entitled to any! We have come a long, long way as a nation; I will be damned if I should ever accept a subservient roll ever again!
Tendai Biti finished the interview by saying MDC would accept a government of national unity as long as Mugabe was not a part of that government. That would be yet another blunder by MDC. Mugabe’s cronies are now the new owners of most of the commercials farms the regime seized in the last eight years and they will not give up these farms, particularly if they have a say in the future government – there are granted of that in a unity government. The whole world is facing a food shortage, can Zimbabwe pass on the chance to boost its own food production in order to appease the very men and women who have dragged the nation through hell? That would be sheer folly!
MDC is not under any pressure to form a government of national unity. It is Mugabe who is under pressure to do so. The Zimbabwe economy is in such a mess now that Mugabe knows he can not ignore it and expect to last more than a few months in power. He also knows he will need the West’s help to rebuild the economy and that the later would not lift a finger whist he remains in power. A whitewashed Zanu PF with MDC colours would be the ideal solution. His gamble is that MDC swallow the national unity government bate. Sadly, it seems MDC are foolish enough to do just that!
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