MDC Congress retains Tsvangirai as its leader: what a pity!

The way MDC supporters have been fighting over positions is really no different from what Zanu PF supporters have been doing. It is a dog eat dog situation. None of them are really interested in addressing the real problems the nation is facing; they do not have the foggiest idea what these are nor do they really care.

If either party’s supporters and leaders fought for restoration of human rights and dignity, the rule of law and good governance with just half as much passion as that shown fighting for public office; Zimbabwe would not be in the hell-hole we are in today.

Being elected into public office is about serving the public and so those aspiring for public office should be asking themselves is “What do I have to offer to the public? Or, why should the public vote for me and not someone else?” In Zimbabwe neither Zanu PF nor MDC are counting on winning the public’s confidence to win elections. Once upon a time Mugabe and Zanu PF promised to delivery mass prosperity – “gutsa ruzhinji” as the party said in Shona. It seems Mugabe and others really believed they would do this although to anyone with any common sense the party’s “scientific socialism” was doomed to fail.

There was nothing scientific about the Mugabe regime’s economic policies of reckless spending. How could the nation prosper by spending beyond her economic means? It was, however, the decades of gross mismanagement, rampant corruption and the all-out looting, especially in the last ten years, by the regime that turned economic stagnation into a spectacular failure and then finally into total melt down.

Mugabe and Zanu PF have since given up hope of staying in power by winning the electorate’s confidence and therefore their vote. The dictatorship is counting on all manner of vote rigging and cheating including the use of brute force against its opponents, to eliminate the competition, and against the public, to force them to vote for the party.

Tsvangirai and his MDC friends have not offered the Zimbabwean public any meaningful way out of the mess Mugabe landed the nation. All they have done is offered themselves as the alternative to Zanu PF and expect a nation, desperate for change, to elect them.

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So Tsvangirai is making his demands! He demands that the next elections be held “in a peaceful environment”. He demands that the said elections “be a free and fair contest". Sadly, that will not change the reality on the ground; the violence will continue.

Political violence has become a fixture of Zimbabwe politic. The violence in 2008 elections was particularly brutal and shocking. For one thing the Police, CIO and Army were, for the first time, used spearhead the violence. In the past these security agencies had turned a blind eye to all Zanu PF militia and war vets acts of violence and lawlessness. Mugabe has since formalised the sinister arrangement; in a 2009 Zanu PF Congress resolution, these State agents are compelled promote and protect Zanu PF because it is the “party of revolution”!

For two years Tsvangirai has done nothing to abolish the abomination of political violence from Zimbabwe politics forever. And now with Zanu PF inspired violence on the rise he demands “a free and fair contest”.

MDC Congress had the opportunity to elect some quality leaders. But by re-electing Tsvangirai, a flawed and indecisive character, the party has not done itself or the nation any favours!