THE WORST THING TSVANGIRAI EVER DID WAS TO DO NOTHING!

The people of Zimbabwe voted for MDC and now it is time for MDC to repay the people trust by assuming their full responsibility as leaders.

It took a single day to count the votes following 29 March 2008 elections. Zimbabwe Election Commission’s (ZEC) task was to official announce 210 Parliamentary and 60 Senatorial seats and total the votes for each of the presidential candidates and announces that result too. Just how difficult could that be! It took ZEC days to announce only a handful of results: Day 1 – Zanu PF 4 MDC 4, Day 2 – Zanu PF 9 MDC 9 and so on. It was painfully slow!

It took two week to know the parliamentary and senate results and before the presidential results could be announce the world was told there was to be a recount in 23 constituencies. It took a whole week before the results of the recount in two were announced.

Today it is exactly 26 days since the people voted and still ZEC is yet to announce the result of the presidential elections.

Day three into the count, Archbishop Desmond Tutu said even “the dumbest” could see what was going on. Mugabe is up to some mischief.

ZEC’s snail pace of releasing the election result was deliberate and calculated. Mugabe wanted to see what MDC would do about it. When he was sure MDC was not going to do anything he took courage and make his next bold move; disregard the presidential result and force a run-off. But first he needed to deploy his party’s militia whose express task was to intimidate and terrorise the electorate. Fear has always been one of the most effective tool in Mugabe’s electoral arsenal and the deployment is to remind the people that Mugabe may have failed to deliver on the economic front still he alone holds the key to whether or not the country descend into lawlessness and anarchy!

Whilst the Army and Police are not themselves actively involved in the militia’s thuggery the fact that they have been deployed and doing nothing to stop the criminal acts is meant to demonstrate their unshaken royalty to Mugabe.

The whole election process has been drawn out to give the militia time to drive their message home.

When Mugabe is ready, ZEC will announce that there was no clear winner in the presidential elections. MDC’s own results have been all over the place; it was 67% for Tsvangirai at one point and has since dropped to 50.3%. An independent body has given Tsvangirai 49% and ZEC has the ease task of confirming that!

The latest from MDC is that the party will not take part in the run-off in the end it will. Mugabe will see to it there is a lull in the militia activities although their presence, particularly in rural areas, will continue to be prominent.

Most of the MDC officials have been driven out of the rural areas by the militia and the party supporters have all but vanished. Tsvangirai would be hard pushed to find anyone to stand as MDC election monitor or attract his rallies this time round.

The painful thing is Mugabe should and would have left State House within days of losing the 29 March vote if Tsvangirai and MDC had for once some leadership qualities. On Tuesday 1 April 2008 Tsvangirai was on national TV telling Zimbabweans “to be patient”. He went on to say MDC would not hold any mass action.

Mass action was the only realistic option open to MDC and one Mugabe would have found impossible to ignore or deal to with. So in his infinite wisdom, Tsvangirai ruled that one out- three days into the stand-off. MDC called a mass-stay away a week later. It was a complete flop came back to it a week later but because the timing is everything and to make the matters worse, there was no passion or commitment on the part of MDC to see the mass action through.

Some people reveal their hand at the negotiation table but always keep their trump card up the sleeve. MDC’s negotiation skills take the biscuit; they discard their one card, and as if that was not bad enough go out of their way to show they do not know how to use it anywhere.

During the Tuesday Press Conference Tsvangirai also confirmed something Mugabe particularly wanted to hear; that MDC was afraid of Mugabe. MDC was no going to do anything because they did not want to give Mugabe the “excuse” to take repressive measures. Mugabe had just lost a very important elections and he would certainly want to punish the electorate for that, so he had a very good excuse already the important question was how best to counteract that!

Common sense, dictates that one does not tell or show a Bully that one is afraid of him/her. Tell the Bull your older brother/sister/cousin is keen as mustard to meet the Bully- for a friendly chat! Next time you are in a public gathering pick the meanest looking stranger you can find and make sure the Bully sees you talking to the stranger and pointing in the Bully’s direction. Get the fires of sweet revenge, justice and punishment burning and you will see what a coward the Bully is. Show fear and he/she will give even more reason why you should fear him/her!

MDC’s failure to stand up to Mugabe gave the later thecourage and confidence to deploy his militia to intimidate, terrorise, beat and murder!

MDC has had countless opportunities to redeem itself but again failed to seize them. For example, the party could have organised large crowds to visit victims of Zanu PF political violence in hospitals and jails and attend funerals of the murdered victims. Mugabe would have found it impossible to ignore this; even if he MDC only had to step this up till Mugabe was forced to either withdraw his thugs or arrest the crowds-which of cause was unsustainable, even for a ruthless regime like his.

The purpose of mass action was defined by Mahatma Gandhi: to expose the injustice and provoke a reaction from the powers that be until the injustice is readdressed. In this case the immediate injustice is the violence and beatings by Zanu PF thugs. The main grievance remains; that Mugabe should not usurp the people’s democratic vote.

Tsvangirai’s shuttle diplomatic initiative was doomed in that it was further proof that he was weak. That he could not gunner any public support within Zimbabwe to stop Mugabe’s stage managed lawlessness. Sadc leaders knew well enough that, unless they were prepared to send their own soldiers into Zimbabwe, there was very little else they could to force Mugabe to call off his militia. Tsvangirai seems to have great difficult in understanding that a sign of just how naïve he really is.

So it is with the help of Tsvangirai in fact that Mugabe has managed to frustrate the Zimbabwe’s electoral will to have the former as their leader. During the run-off the electorate have a simple choice vote for Tsvangirai again and risk even more lawlessness and mayhem.

Mugabe is painfully aware that the economic melt down can not be ignore any more, so as a sop up to the international community he will form a national unity. Of course he will remain firmly in charge as President; Tsvangirai would be appointed one of the country’s two Vice Presidents. Mugabe may even hind that he will relinquish power to Tsvangirai at some future date.
Tsvangirai thought when Mugabe started his mischief he would do nothing. Well it now seems doing nothing was exactly what Mugabe wanted him to do!