Tsvangirai admits the MDC has not made much progress since joining Mugabe to form the GNU. He asked the people to be patient. “It is the MDC which is in government. We are not the government,” he said. Well, I do not think even Tsvangirai himself knew what that was supposed to mean.
“Confusion arises out of the fact that being in government does not necessarily mean that we are the government,” he explained. “It does not mean we have the liberty and unilateral decisions to make the changes we want.”
The people are angry with MDC not because the party did not have the liberty to make unilateral decision, no. The people expect MDC to negotiated and compromised on the party’s election manifesto; it is to be expected in a coalition. The people are angry with MDC because the negotiated and compromised on every point, including what people considered the core areas, and got nothing in return. Mugabe has been making unilateral decisions.
According to the GPA this GNU is supposed to be coalition MDC-T, Zanu PF and MDC-M. MDC-T should be the driving partner in the coalition because it has the largest number of MPs. Still GPA says all key decisions will be made by the three party leaders; Tsvangirai, Mugabe and Mutambara. In practice Mugabe has made all the key decisions without even bothering to consult the other two.
“Our goal of restoring fundamental freedoms and human rights is not yet achieved but we are moving in the right direction,” Tsvangirai told the MDC party faithful. The situation on the ground is the exact opposite; it has remained exactly as Mugabe set it up.
The country’s repressive media laws are still on the statute book and Zanu PF still have a strangle hold and monopoly over the public media. The Police and Zanu PF thugs still continue to intimidate and terrorise the people. They are still a law on to themselves. The lack of any meaningful progress in the deliver of democratic and human rights can be attributed to the fact that MDC did not have a plan of action.
Tsvangirai cited the stabilising of the economy and bringing down of the country’s rate of inflation as MDC,s greatest achievement. All the party did was end the price control and stopped the use of the Z$ as a trading currency. These were all common sense changes, but since there is real nothing else for Tsvangirai to crow about, he had to milk this for all its worth!
“The crisis we face is a crisis of identity, half donkey half horse it’s a mule,” Tsvangirai admitted in his on muddled way. Robert Mugabe knows of no such crisis of identity; he is the master in this GNU and he has the whip firmly in his right hand and has a beast of burden to do his donkey work.
Mugabe is lucky to still be in the driving seat when by right he should be answering some difficult questions about the many innocent Zimbabweans’ blood on his hands. He knows that! His greatest worry is that the animal – who cares whether it is a donkey, horse or mule, he beggar like him can not afford to be picky - delivers something and thus ease the country’s current economic melt down. Until that happens his position is not secure, the cloud of regime change hangs over him like Damocles Sword.
The only positive thing to come out of Tsvangirai is an admission that MDC has not done much. The admission is a significant departure from MDC’s usual claim of the party having achieved “incremental gains” invisible to everyone else except the blind party loyalists. The admission will hopefully force the party to have a plan with clear set goals and work the plan. It would have been great if Tsvangirai had announced the party’s goals for the next three months- but that would have been too much to expect!
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