Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’ s keynote address at his MDC party’s 12th Anniversary Celebration was stereo typical self indulgence chest drumming in which the glaring failures and blunders are glossed over or ignored completely and the few flickering flames of achievements becoming the blazing torches giving light and warm to all! Reading through the Prime Minister’s speech remaindered of this pompous Master of Ceremony in my High School
My High School had a Ball every year. It was traditional to have a ticket draw in which only the girls from the visiting schools took part. The Master of Ceremony one year was this pompous individual who considered himself God’s gift to all the girls and as for us boys it was more like “look and learn!” Instead of calling the lucky number and give the winner the price Mr “Pompous” who loved to hear his own voice played the music “Is she lovely” by Steve Wonder and then gave a speech expounding on the beauty of the winner. No doubt all copied from the Miss World Beauty Contest; there was nothing original about Mr “Pompous”, he was a phony through and through.
As lucky will have it, the winner that year was fat short girl with molehill for pimples all over her face. Everything about her suggested she did not care how she looked. If there had been a beauty contest that day, she would probably have come last! Mr “Pompous” had picked his music and had his speech to deliver; he soldiered on regardless of the fact that the music and speech said the exact opposite of the female specimen before him. That was priceless! Prime Minister Tsvangirai was giving a repeat performance of Mr “Pompous”!
“So today you must congratulate yourselves! For 12 years, you survived violence and intimidation!” said the PM. “For 12 years, you braved the brutality of an entrenched dictatorship and kept your faith in democracy and non-violence!”
Mr Prime Minister, we did not set out to “survive the violence and intimidation” but to end it! In 2008 the people of Zimbabwe risked everything in voting for you and your party giving you the parliamentary majority. Mugabe and Zanu PF punished the whole nation during the presidential run-off that followed. Mugabe deployed not just his party thugs but the Police, Army and CIO to terrorize, rape and murder to ensure the people voted for Mugabe in the run-off. Over 500 innocent Zimbabweans were murdered, Mr PM: they did NOT survive.
Mugabe’s rule was over after the sham June 2008 election because no other nation would recognize him as the legitimate head of state after all the blatant disregard all the law governing the conduct of elections. It was only after you signed the GPA that Mugabe was allowed back into the commune of nation. As if that was not bad enough, you allowed Mugabe to have all his dictatorial powers. There was a chorus of voices advising you not to sign the clearly one-sided agreement but you chose to ignore them. In other words it was you Mr PM who has “entrenched” this Mugabe dictatorship.
What have you done with your MDC parliamentary majority that the nation risked so much to give you? Nothing! Mugabe has over the years reduced parliament into a gathering of lackeys with a lot of power and authority in theory but scared stiff to exercise it. Well this parliament might just as well have had a Zanu PF majority!
“We accepted this painful compromise (of the GPA) because we were guided by the righteous and noble objective of stabilizing the economy and rescuing the people from the precipice of poverty, uncertainty, starvation and indignity wrought by three decades of corruption and misgovernance,” said the PM.
You stabilized the economy? The only thing that happened was the scraping of the valueless Z$ and putting a stop to Gono’s money printing machine that had fueled the country’s hyper inflation. That was simple and common sense thing to do; indeed Mugabe had already done this by the time the GNU was formed in February 2009. That alone is hardly worthy of all the dramatic extravagancy of “rescuing the people from the precipice of poverty, … plunge into the abyss,” etc.
The real economic challenge was in putting an end to the lawless looting that had undermined investor and donor confidence and how to make decimated agricultural sector productive again. MDC ignored all these critical challenges and so the much hoped for economy recovery has not happened. Unemployment has hardly changed, 80% plus down from 90%. MDC has completely failed to stop Mugabe pushing his policy forcing foreign owned mines, banks and other business selling 51% stake to blacks. This is nothing but a new looting scheme by Mugabe and his cronies. The Zimbabwe economy will suffer yet another crippling blow if this madness is carried out and MDC has done precious little to stop Mugabe.
Since the signing of the GPA MDC has failed to bring about not even one democratic reform in Zimbabwe. Mugabe has not just stubbornly resisted all reforms; he has done further than that. In December 2009 Mugabe managed to get the Police, the Army and CIO to formerly plague their loyalty to Zanu PF which means these State Organs can now “duty bound” to support Zanu PF’s fight to stay in power. Mugabe has also amasses wealth from the sell of diamonds to pay his party thugs. Mugabe is ready for fresh elections alright.
“We must be ashamed as political parties that even the things we have agreed on have become outstanding issues because of non-implementation,” Tsvangirai admitted. “Partisan policing, a biased justice system and violence remain rooted in our culture to the extent that rogue elements can beat up elected MPs in the Parliament chambers and escape unpunished.”
As things stand, one thing is almost certain in the next elections; there will be plenty of violence. Mugabe has no choice but to use violence; as Professor Jonathan Moyo once said Mugabe would lose the election to a donkey if he did not use violence; that is how unpopular he is. Mugabe risks being declared illegitimate again if he used too much violence. My guess is he will use very subtle and targeted violence in combination with other vote rigging ways - enough for him and his party to win with a few seats for opposition.
“In 2008, the people spoke in an election that they wanted a new culture and a new beginning. But their vote did not count.” True enough Mr Prime Minister. “Those who lost the election were smuggled into an inclusive government that is now dysfunctional due to their intransigence and lack of a common vision.” PM you were foolish enough to smuggle the tyrant back into State House but lack the intellect to acknowledge it ever now with hindsight.
If MDC had the quality leadership then it would have never made the mind boggling blunders it has made all these 12 years. Morgan Tsvangirai is himself a “flawed and indecisive character” as former US Ambassador to Zimbabwe, Chris Dell, rightly pointed out. So flawed he failed to appreciate sound advise and now, with the nation facing the full enormity of his blunders, he is celebrating it all as success! But worst of all, the nation; if it does not do something about it now, is stack with him and his MDC!
“And I tell you, we could not have achieved this without the unity of the leaders you see here. I guarantee you that this unity will continue into the future,” continued Tsvangirai.
The nation will remember Tsvangirai for generations the same way I will remember Mr. Pompous the difference is I laugh and the nation will cry!
No comments:
Post a Comment