There is no “right time” in any nation’s history when it is ok to have a feeble leader. As long a leader’s metal is never really tested then nation will never know the danger it was in and so it really is OK to have a feeble leader at such times. Having a feeble leader who is hen tested and found wanting can often have tragic consequences.
In the last few years of quite and peace Britain had a feeble leader, Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain whose policy of appeasement of the Germany dictator, Adolf Hitler, proved to be disastrous for Britain and the world at large. By the time the British people realised the disastrous path PM Chamberlain was leading them and had him replace the damage had been done. The price paid to stop Hitler was millions of human lives and untold suffering and misery to those who lived through the bitterness of the Second World War.
Zimbabwe has had the great misfortune of having a ruthless dictator Robert Mugabe and for nearly thirty years he has ruined the country’s once prosperous and vibrant economy. Years of economic mismanagement and rampant corruption has sapped the very life out economy; with unemployment soaring to 95%, inflation over 5 billion %, etc. Life expectancy has dropped from 65 years in 1980 to 34 years in 2006.
On the political front Mugabe has murdered hundreds of thousands of Zimbabweans to achieved absolute dictatorial power. He has corrupted the country’s democratic institutions; the Police, Judiciary, Media, etc. turning them into puppets, there to save his selfish end and not the people. Last year is a act of desperation to hang on to power Mugabe mounted one of the most outrageous campaign of terror and murder in which half a million innocent Zimbabweans were harassed, beaten, raped and/or had their property destroyed. At least two hundred people were murdered in cold blood.
The people of Zimbabwe placed their hopes and trust in Morgan Tsvangirai and his MDC party to lead the nation out of the nightmare of Mugabe dictatorship. Suddenly that was not to be. Tsvangirai has turned out to be one of those feeble leaders, tested and found wanting.
The nation was looking for a visionary and firm leader to not only deal with the dictator Mugabe but also one who would dismantle the whole edifice of the dictatorship and replace it with a strong democratic system. Instead the nation got Tsvangirai a feeble man, with little intellectual talent and no common sense. And like all feeble minded leaders before him, he has sort to appease Mugabe with a blind stubbornness.
Ever since MDC became the main opposition party in Zimbabwe, the party has sort to appease Mugabe at every turn. After the sham presidential run-off election MDC entered into protracted power sharing negotiations with Mugabe in which they conceded to Mugabe’s demands without receiving much in return. In the end Mugabe got all his dictatorial powers.
It was clear the GNU would never achieve much; as it turned out three months after its formation the nation is stuck on basic and yet important issues like getting a Police Force that will carry out its primary task of up holding the rule of law. Instead the Police have continued to harass, to arrest and even murder innocent citizens just as they have done before the GNU. Many people had said from the on-set the GNU would not work but Tsvangirai, in his wisdom said it was “not perfect but workable”!
Now it has proved unworkable, as many people had said; Tsvangirai is asking SADC and AU to intervene. He does not know what exactly he wants SADC and the AU to say or do. Typical!
Tsvangirai can not be blamed for Zimbabwe’s economic melt down and the tragic human misery caused. Nor can anyone blame him for the heinous human rights violations visited on the people. Mugabe is responsible for all that. Tsvangirai has had numerous opportunities to stop the dictator dead in his tracks but again and again failed to do so. His policies of appeasement have only saved to extend Mugabe’s reign of terror.
It is tempting to compare Zimbabwe’s PM Tsvangirai to the British PM Chamberlain. The truth is the later was feeble but at least he had the common sense to allow better men play leading roles. Tsvangirai is a feeble leader with the stubbornness of a mule. The people of Zimbabwe have paid a heavy price for having such a failed leader at this critical stage in the country’s history. It took a lot of grit determination on the part of the people to get Tsvangirai where he is, it will not be easy to replace him. The nation is stuck with a dictator in power and the man tasked to rid the nation of the dictator, is nothing more than the dictator’s accolade.
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