TSVANGIRAI HAS A LOT IN COMMON WITH JOHN McCAIN

Morgan Tsvangirai has a lot in common with US Presidential candidate Senator John McCain than he has with the other candidate, Senator Barack Obama.

When the financial crisis hit the West, the biggest challenge to test the grit of each US Presidential candidate; the two responded differently. Senator McCain was all over the place. He proposed calling off the planned presidential debate but attended it anywhere. He supported the measures the Bush Administration proposed but did not have any comprehensive proposals of his own. There was certainly some panic and confusion in the McCain camp.

Senator Barack Obama too supported the measures proposed by the Bush Administration but had a raft of proposal of his own. He did not see what purpose calling off the planned presidential debate would save and said he would be there. Obama was cool, calm and collected, the complete opposite of what McCain had wanted the American people to believe.

Senator McCain had rammed the message “I have experience of holding high office and Obama has none!” down the American throats. What good is all your years in high office if you panic at the first real challenge. Americans, like any other nation, we sleep better knowing they have a competent leader at the helm.

Tsvangirai has too shown the same Senator McCain scatter-brain response under even the lightest bit of pressure. Take for example this Tsvangirai passport debacle. The Tsvangirai camp went to great lengths to explain why the failure to issue him a passport made it impossible for him to attend the meeting in Swaziland. If he did not boycott the meeting because he did not have a passport then why did he refuse to go when a private jet was laid out for him?

The meeting has since been moved to Harare and MDC has since confirm that Tsvangirai would attend even if he did not have his new passport. So what was that all about!?

Following all the violence and lawlessness during the presidential run-off many countries refused to recognise Mugabe as the Zimbabwe’s head of State. Mugabe was on the hook. But by signing the power sharing deal MDC let Mugabe off the hook. Mugabe has rewarded Tsvangirai by refusing to honour the word on spirit of the deal. It is the people of Zimbabwe who have paid the heaviest price for this blunder with their very lives. One would be hard pushed to find many comparable blunders in human history.

Come 4 th November 2008 the American people will decide who is to be the next President of the United States of America; either Senate John McCain or Senator Barack Obama. Some will vote on racial lines; there are racial begets on both sides of the divide. But many will vote for the man they believe would be the best for America.

When it comes to the crunch America’s democratic system will test the candidates sorting out the best from the rest. And the majority of the American electorate will have the coolness to rise above petty bigotry and make an informed choice.

Whoever wins, the Americans will work together for the good of America.

In Zimbabwe we have a long way to go to achieve that America has done. Mugabe can not be compared to any of the American presidential candidates. No American candidate for any office has ever dared hold the gun to the electorate and murder thousands of voters. Not ever the notorious American Mafia has ever done that.

In Africa we have a tendency to put our leaders on a pedestal where they can do no wrong. That is why Tsvangirai’s supporters keep showering him praise and will not see the many costly blunders he has made. For years the people of Zimbabwe have held Robert Mugabe in the same reverence awe.

In Africa it is infinitely easier to be a ruthless dictator than to be a competent democrat. In a democratic country like US it is near impossible to have a totally incompetent President – the vigorous selection system makes it very difficult for such a candidate to go on to win the presidency. As for a dictator, few have tried but fell flat on their faces before they got very far!

Good luck to both Senator John McCain and Senator Barack Obama; may the best man win!
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ARCHBISHOP TUTU MUST VOTE NEXT YEAR OTHERWISE IT WILL MAKE THE BIGGEST POLITICAL MISTAKE OF HIS LIFE!

I hold Nobel laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu in very high regard. I would be very disappointed if he should not vote next year supposedly in protest against Zuma and others for betraying ANC's core democratic values. Because turning ones back on this key pillar of democracy will be self-defeating and will only be playing into hands of those he is accusing of undermining SA’s democratic values!

The vote is the greatest weapon the democrats have in the fight to stop dictators and anarchists taking over. The anarchists know and understand only too well the importance of a free and democratic vote. So they have devised a simple scheme to count it; do everything to undermine the value of a free and democratic vote and thus force the democrats to abandon it as total ineffective. That is exactly what Mugabe did in Zimbabwe.

Voter apathy is the one thing that made rigging Zimbabwe’s elections easy. When you are losing public support then discourage the discontented section from voting. In 2000 and even more 2008 the Zimbabwe public had change of heart. This time they were determined to vote; Zimbabweans travelled from as far afield as South Africa , Botswana and even the UK and USA so that they can cast their vote. If it was not for the chaotic way Zanu PF contacted the voter registration and the voting itself – the 29 March 2008 poll would have had an even higher voter turn out than was recorded!

It took has taken Zimbabwe nearly thirty years and total economic melt down to realise that giving up our democratic vote was a big mistake. On the 29 March 2008 the people of Zimbabwe went back and voted in droves and proved once again that it is a very effective weapon.

One hopes that South Africans will not make the same mistake we did. And if they should do, God forbid, it would be tragic if eminent people like as Archbishop Tutu were to lead the nation down this dead-end path!